Denver Post – Sixth Congressional – Heavily Fought, Highly Negative

Denver Post’s Joey Bunch and Carlos Illescas put the Sixth Congressional District on the Sunday front page.

“Nancy Pelosi is not going to add 17 seats (for Democrats to retake the House) without getting this one,” said Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli. “It’ll be one of the most heavily fought races in the country. It’ll be highly negative. I have no doubt about that.”

The district, created after 2010 census, is one of the most closely balanced in voter registration and Election Day performance. Voter registration today gives a small advantage to the Republicans, but President Obama won the district by five points in 2012 (18,000 votes).

Because the race will be so heavily promoted by the national parties, it is likely to be balanced in campaign cash, and Mike Coffman and Andrew Romanoff are equally strong campaigners.

Both campaigns must reach out to less committed voters and the substantial unaffiliated bloc of voters. Coffman may have a slight advantage as the Republican Party’s most successful statewide candidate.

Ciruli said the reality is that both candidates will have to reach voters outside their traditional bases of support to win the divided district.

“Coffman has a good track record of that, he’s won the district before, and he’s won statewide offices,” Ciruli said. “Romanoff has done less of that. The races he’s won have been in heavily Democratic districts. He hasn’t really been tested.”

Hence, unless a mistake is made by one of the candidates or campaigns, this race is likely to be decided by the voters’ sense of which party is most disliked on Election Day. At the moment, it’s a tie in the Real Clear Politics generic question as which party is preferred. Congress’ lack of performance and especially the shutdown hurt Coffman, and the ACA and President Obama’s weak performance numbers hurt Romanoff.