May 11, 2012 08:26 PM UTC

CD-6 Makes List of Races That "Might Surprise You"

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• by: Colorado Pols

An interesting assessment of the upcoming battle between newly-vulnerable incumbent Rep. Mike Coffman and his upstart Democratic challenger, state Rep. Joe Miklosi, from our friends at the Washington Post’s The Fix blog:

10. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.): Coffman’s seat wasn’t supposed to be overhauled in redistricting – Democrats were instead focused on targeting freshman GOP Reps. Cory Gardner and Scott Tipton – but then the state legislature deadlocked and left the issue to the courts. The result: Coffman got the short end of the stick. His sixth district moved from a district that would have gone 46 percent for President Obama in 2008 to one that would have gone 54 percent for Obama. He faces state Rep. Joe Mikloski [sic–Pols] in what is pretty much a swing district. The good news for Republicans is that Coffman is a fundraising machine, pulling in $530,000 in the first quarter…

That’s not quite the way we remember this happening in the redistricting process, as big changes to CD-6 had long been part of Democratic proposed congressional maps, but The Fix’s Aaron Blake is right that the district has been reshaped into a dramatically more competitive territory–and that Rep. Coffman’s best hope lies in his very large war chest.

Now if they can just start spelling “Joe Mikloski’s” name right…