Sixth Congressional Candidates Look for Minority Votes

The Sixth Congressional District is Colorado’s most competitive and has the second largest minority voting bloc. The district voted for President Obama by five points in 2012, his statewide average, while re-electing Congressman Mike Coffman by two points. With a third of the voters minorities, their turnout will be key to deciding the winner. So both candidates are focusing attention on them.

At 20 percent, there is a substantial group of Hispanic voters, but the district also has the state’s second largest group of African American voters in Colorado’s seven congressional districts.

 

Turnout from the 2010 election and the 2012 presidential dropped by a third. If that happens in the 2014 election, expect about 240,000 voters. The falloff in voting will be larger among minority voters.

 
On the importance of minority voters, Aurora Sentinel, April 4, 2014, Rachel Sapin:

“You will get some minority votes no matter what the midterm turnout is … We’re talking about a 2-point race,” Ciruli said, pointing to 2012 when Coffman beat former state Rep. Joe Mikloski by about 2 percent in the newly redrawn district. Ciruli says it will only take a couple thousand votes for either candidate to win the CD 6 seat, and at this point, it could go either way.