Congressman Mike Coffman’s stunning success in reaching out to a much more diverse district has him being held up by the national Republican Party as a way the GOP must engage if they wanted to pull Latino voters to their side.
U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, left, and Democrat Andrew Romanoff smile at the start of a their first debate in the 2014 election cycle. (Brennan Linsley, Associated Press)
At the annual U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce summit in Washington D.C. last month, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus singled out Coffman, .
“He took intensive Spanish courses, and in the last election, he even participated in a Spanish language debate on Univision. And he’s still continuing his classes,” the chairman said.
Coffman did adapt — and how, , African and Latino communities after his district changed.
No one saw that one coming when the Aurora Republican was first elected in a very conservative, very white district in 2008. But after 2010 the boundaries were redrawn to make it nearly equally divided among GOP, Democratic and unaffiliated voters, which meant a much more ethnically diverse district. Coffman nearly lost in 2012 to state lawmaker Joe Miklosi, a Democrat who was underfunded and virtually unknown.
That’s when he began his outreach program.
by 9 percentage points in a race that had been expected to the closest House battle in the country. Romanoff, who worked overseas, is fluent in Spanish.
Coffman still studies several times a week with his Columbian-born tutor. Fox News Latino said Coffman at times answered questions asked in English in Spanish.
