CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
May 21, 2013 11:16 AM UTC
20 Comments
UPDATE: Jason Salzman weighs in with
On a left-right scale there is no doubt Coffman is a solid conservative – probably in the moderate side to the middle of the GOP Congressional caucus nationally.
In the era when moderate Republicans still existed, he would never have been confused with one. But, he is, for want of a better word a "civilized" conservative.
Compared to other notable Republican politicians past and present, however, he is somewhat more moderate (or at least is less loony) than his predecessor Tom Tancredo, than his delegation colleague Lamborn, or than his party's most recent nominee for Governor (remember Dan Maes?) and probably a hair more moderate than former U.S. Senate candiate Ken Buck. While he was nothing to write home about as Colorado Secretary of State (as Nancy Cronk rightly notes), compared to Scott Gessler he was both more competent and more ethical. He is more ethical than Ben Nighthorse-Campbell (a genuine moderate) and less flaky than former U.S. Congress candidate Ryan Frazier.
The other things that contribue to his moderate image are that he has not joined a number of highly inflammatory and loony right legislative and PR efforts that he could have given the very safe district he had at the time (e.g. he has largely managed to avoid blame the victim rhetoric on sexual assault issues and has refrained from ads that call even in mock form for violence against his political opponents) and in general has been more of a work horse than a show horse as Congressmen go. He has not burned bridges with others in his own party, and not obliviously introduced legislation that harms no one other than his own constitutents (a la Tancredo's First Data excise tax proposal) and now and again joins a bipartisan legislative measure.
These factors and the powers of incumbency has allowed him to win statewide office and a newly redististricted much more competitive district than the old CD 6, which many other Republicans woudn't have been able to win due to foot in mouth disease.
Coffman is a much more complex and intelligent man than Pols thinks, but Pols sees every Republican in two dimensions anyway.
complex my ass. He cares not for conservatism, moderation, etc. He cares about that $180K paycheck.
In Coffman's adult life he has done 2 things that warrant merit. Military service and service to the St Vrain school district when he was Treasurer.
I don't know, ArapaGOP — the fundraising letter he sent me seemed pretty simple-minded, standard Republican Party tripe:
"… keep Colorado's 6th Contgressional District out of the hands of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama."
"… Nancy Pelosi, national Democrat and liberal fundraising groups are all targeting my seat …"
"And that is why I am reaching out to you and other Colorado conservatives …"
NANCY PELOSI! Here in Colo-rady! Why That San Francisco CaliFORnia way is NOT the CD6 way, I say!
I have never been able to figure out what it is about Nancy Pelosi that is supposed to be so appalling.
She is tough, smart, and effective…scares the pants off of em'…
Duke, you forgot to mention that she has girl-parts and wields power. That is really scary to the GOP.
females and African-Americans Those that are both get special treatment
Well, Coffman is at least more complex and intelligent than you think Pols thinks. But if you look back through the history of this blog, there have been plenty of comments and even FP diaries noting that Coffman is no Doug Lamborn or Dan Maes, and all to the better.
The GOP has succeeded so well over the past couple of decades in moving the definition of moderate ever farther to the right that unless you yourself have been widely quoted making comments such as that women have magical natural birth control defenses against rapist sperm but only if they aren't enjoying the experience, you get to be a moderate. Comments such as Obama not really being an American don't count unless they get played over and over and talked about as much and over as long a time period in the national media as Akins' comments were.
For anyone paying attention, of course, characterizing Coffman as a moderate is laughable and Romanoff, who certainly looks to be the Dem who will be running against him, will have to spend very big bicks to keep Coffman's far right record and extremist comments before the public. Lots of TV and radio ads will be required. This is where some of that that impure PAC money would come in handy. PAC ads, which don't come from the candidate and don't include a candidate approving the message, can go as far as they dare in smacking an opponent without touching the dignity of the candidate they are supporting to the degree the candidate approved ads do.
Coffman absolutely cannot be left free to portray himself as moderate enough for the new CD6 and, as evidenced by crap like this, that will be ridiculously easy for him to do without lots of expensive push back. From the beginning, he has been perceived as a sensible moderate type R here in CD6 by the the low info majority of voters and perceptions are hard to change since most voters don't pay much attention to politics and facty things like voting records.
Until Romanoff manages to change it with lots of high profile repetition, the low info majority who know anything about him simply know he's served his country in the military and aren't aware of anything particularly crazy. So, yep, that makes him moderate enough.
that would be bucks.
In today's Republican Party, you're considered a "moderate" if you apologize after calling our President a non-American.
No-one called Coffman "moderate" even back when he was in the state legislature. The best he ever got was being called "ethical" or "principled".
As the Guvs note, he's got plenty of ultra-conservative creds to his name – he's just a bit more "gentlemanly" about his conservativeness than some of the current crop of GOP officials.
That's all it takes. If you aren't full out insane, you're moderate. If you're a true centrist, you're a lefty and if you're a little left of center, you're the anti-Christ or Stalin or Hitler, take you're pick.
Coffman is extremely conservative and by throwing in with the Obama is un-American and maybe illegitimate crowd, then sort of apologizing, then sort of un-apologizing, he no longer has any credibility as a politician of integrity or principle, regardless of position on the left/right scale.
Coffman will be well funded, and an incumbent in an off year election. He has weknesses.I'm not in cheerleader mode so I'll just say that I expect a very close race. AR should reach out to Bennet supporters from the 2010 primary. Nancy Cronk is holding a fundraiser for him. He'll need all the Dems he can get.
Of course this doesn't mean much beyond my circle but I personally don't know any fellow CD 6 Bennet supporters from that election who are so pissy that they wouldn't support Andrew in a bid to unseat Coffman. Concerned about the whole I won't touch impure money thing, yeah, but very much wanting our first CD6 Dem victory and to rid ourselves of Coffman. As a group, we never were as anti-Romanoff as so many Romanoff supporters were virulently anti-Bennet.
Coffman v Romanoff for CD-6 … turnout will determine the winner. An above average turnout will favor Romanoff, as he will get the vast majority of low information, government dependent voters.
either explain why Romanoff gets the "low information voter" rather than Coffman or go back to your corner with Moncrief
He means…ummm…"urban", all of whom are "takers". Apparently there's no such thing as middle class or affluent responsible Dems and especially there's no such thing as middle class or affluent responsible …you know…those other people.This no such thing category would include the majority of Asian Americans, Latino Americans, even Jewish Americans (and aren't we all supposed to be rich?) and African Americans, of course.
Apparently most of us just think we exist as middle class and sometimes even affluent contributing members of society. If we really existed as such we'd vote R, of course. Oh and the majority of young voters and the majority of women must be "takers" or not exist either or they would all be voting R as well.
But, just maybe, we do exist. Maybe there isn't any Sleeping Giant. Maybe there's a growing giant that righties aren't able, or willing, to see.