Victoria Oliver has been a police officer for 20 years, the last 10 as a detective, but it didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes instinct for her to deduce that it was time for her to run for political office.

“The election was so divisive. You can take the easy option and sit on the sidelines and criticize, or you can get involved and try to change things,” she said.

The surprise victory of Donald Trump in November was the clincher.

“They’ve picked a petulant boy to run our nation, instead of this incredible woman who was such a force and won the popular vote,” she said.

Oliver, a member of the Denver police department, will embark on a training course this January aimed at preparing her to become a candidate in future local, state or national elections.

She is part of a surge of women across the country who are rushing to run for office in the aftermath of the election – women disappointed that Hillary Clinton lost and disgusted with the sexist and racist rhetoric of Trump’s campaign and the ultra-conservative credentials of his proposed cabinet.

“We are a force to be reckoned with,” said Oliver. “Our time is coming.”

VoteRunLead (VRL), an organization that trains future female politicians, normally receives between 30 and 80 applicants for each of its regular webinars.

“In a 48-hour period after the election, we had 1,100 women sign up for our next webinar and we had to close it and start a wait list,” said Erin Vilardi, executive director of VoteRunLead.

“Most women said they woke up on November 9 and realized they could no longer just spectate or click on online petitions, they wanted to know how to run for office, whether it’s the school board, the city council, state or national representation,” she added.

VRL is a non-partisan organization and women signing up are not asked whether they intend to run as Democrats or Republicans. The main theme of the new influx could be summed up as “a rejection of Trump”, Vilardi said. Two-thirds of existing VRL members who state an affiliation are Democrats. Other organizations that specifically aim to put Democratic women in power, such as Emily’s List and Emerge America, are also reporting a dramatic spike in interest from women.

In Maryland, Eve Hurwitz, 44, had thought about entering politics before but had been concerned at her lack of experience.

“My degree is in music and my career is in business and the military. But when Trump won, I thought: ‘He isn’t qualified either and he’s going to be president,’” she said.

Eve Hurwitz on the USS Enterprise while serving in the navy. Photograph: Courtesy of Eve Hurwitz

Hurwitz is a naval flight officer who served as a mission commander flying in an airborne early warning aircraft during combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. She was based on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and switched from active duty to the reserve in 2010. She is now a financial software consultant.

“Trump tipped me over the edge. I thought: what’s stopping me?” She is training with VRL and wants to become a candidate for state lawmaker in Maryland “within six to 12 months”, she said, or perhaps even go straight for national office in 2018.

Emerge America, a progressive political coaching group, reported almost 800 women signed up for different aspects of their training courses since the election, exponentially more than normal.

One of its courses had 35 women sign up in the six weeks before the election - and 230 in the six weeks after.

Emily’s List, which focuses on getting pro-choice, Democratic women into office and offers one-on-one training, reported that it usually put a lot of resources into scouting women suitable for politics, but now those women were coming to them.

“We have seen an unprecedented number of women raising their hands, wanting to run,” said Denise Feriozzi, deputy executive director of Emily’s List.

She said Emily’s List had an eye on state governor races coming up in 2018.

“We’ve had a lot of success in getting women elected to Congress but there are only two Democratic women governors in the country,” said Feriozzi.

Jenny Willford, 30, knows some of what it will take. She narrowly failed to win a local open seat on the outskirts of Denver in 2015, losing to a fellow Democrat and male party stalwart at least twice her age.

Jenny Willford: ‘I have stories for days about the sexist stuff I heard.’ Photograph: Courtesy of Jenny Willford

“I have stories for days about the sexist stuff I heard. I was told I should have asked his permission and that it was his ‘turn’. Then a voter told me I should be home taking care of my child and baking apple pie – literally. I was called a bitch,” she said.

She is currently weighing whether to run again and meanwhile is running Emerge Colorado, a branch of Emerge America.

Oliver, 50, will enter Emerge Colorado’s training course in January with plans to run for city or state office in two to five years. She became a cop to try to improve community race relations “and because growing up I didn’t see officers like me. I knew black women were there, but I wasn’t seeing them on the beat,” she said.

She takes pride in bridging divides. Oliver said she had a lot of respect for the Black Lives Matter movement and had close friends who were ardent supporters of the grassroots organization that emerged from public outrage over the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and a string of unarmed black men killed by law enforcement.

“When these things occur, I tell people I’m not going to attack the officer because I’m black and I’m not going to defend them because I’m a cop,” she said.

Oliver believes that the vast majority of police officers are sound and well intentioned. When there is a bad officer or a terrible mistake, the authorities need to “hear the whole story, examine it and fix it”, she said.

One of her tenets is good communication.

“Everyone starts on the same page of respect with me, including suspects. But if they drop that I can drop it very fast, too,” she said.

She worries that people have lost faith in the power of their vote in the US and that politicians have stopped listening to the people.

Fayrouz Saad, an Arab American and a Muslim woman, sees “a void” in Congress and state legislatures of young, minority faces.

Saad, 33, has already been through the Emerge Michigan political training program. She works in the Detroit mayor’s office and has a master’s degree in public administration from Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Fayrouz Saad: ‘Rather than hoping someone else steps in, why shouldn’t I?’ Photograph: Salam Zahr

“I had this moment of clarity after the election that rather than hoping someone else steps in, why shouldn’t I?” she said. “I want to run as soon as possible.”

During the campaign, relatives of hers were told by people they didn’t know: “I can’t wait for Donald Trump to deport you.”

She is interested in immigrants’ rights and women’s rights but also income inequality and improving public education.

“When I was in fifth grade I told my teacher I wanted to be the first woman president,” she said. “Why not? Why not me? Why not continue to work my butt off in the hope I could be secretary of state one day? President? I would like to think that one day America could vote for a Muslim American woman and if not me, then someone.”

• This article was amended on 1 January 2017. Eve Hurwitz intends to run for office in Maryland, not Virginia as an earlier version said