Coffman gears up for 2016 battle
This past November was very good to the Coffman family, with Congressman Mike Coffman winning by a larger-than-expected margin and Cynthia Coffman winning the Attorney General’s race by an equally large margin.
But, while Cynthia won’t have another race to run for AG for four years, her husband Mike is gearing up for another bruising fight in 2016. That’s the reality for a Congressman occupying one of the most competitive House seats in the nation. The district was drawn to be a dog fight every two years for whomever holds the seat.
It’s also going to be a hell of an expensive race to run and Coffman can waste no time in raising the resources necessary to defend a seat in a district won by Obama in 2012 by 5 points. Make no mistake, Democrats in Washington, D.C. will be gunning for Coffman’s seat in 2016. Already talk has coalesced around two potential candidates – NARAL Exec Karen Middleton and, unbelievably given the shellacking he received in 2010 and 2014, Andrew Romanoff again.
With Colorado again expected to be a presidential swing state, and a targeted Senate race atop the ticket, the Denver media market will again be one of the most expensive on the planet in the final stretch of the race.
Thanks to the competitive Senate and Gubernatorial races in 2014, and Coffman’s own race, in October 2014 the Denver media market was more expensive than New York City, according to sources familiar with TV buys. Add a presidential race into that mix, and you have a recipe for a House race that is going to need a budget that would make even some statewide campaigns jealous.
Coffman has proved adept at raising the resources necessary to combat the onslaught of national liberal money. Unfortunately for the notoriously hard working Congressman, there is no rest for the weary. Sources close to the campaign say he doesn’t want to face another situation where he is outspent by over a million dollars, as he was this past cycle. We may be barely into 2015, but for Congressman Mike Coffman every day is one less to 2016, when he’ll again need a serious war chest to beat back millions of left wing dollars.