April 10, 2018 09:40 AM UTC

Jason Crow Has All the Momentum in CD-6

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’re less than seven months away from the November election, and if the rest of this year unfolds like the first 100 days have gone for Jason Crow, 2018 is going to be a banner year for the Aurora Democrat.

Crow is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to take on incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Coffman in CD-6, and today his campaign announced a very strong fundraising quarter for the first three months of 2018. From a press release:

Today, Jason Crow, a decorated former Army Ranger, father, veterans’ advocate and candidate for Colorado’s 6^th Congressional District announced raising $461,832 for the first quarter of 2018, bringing his total raised to $1,259,532 since launching his campaign one year ago this week. Crow, who has pledged to not take a dollar from corporate PACs, brought in 91% of his Q1 money from individuals with an average donation of $121. He has gained more than 4,800 individual donors for the cycle and he currently has $883,746 cash on hand.

We don’t know what Coffman’s Q1 fundraising numbers look like (figures won’t be available via the FEC until next week), but Crow’s $461,832 far exceeds the $276,712 raised by the Democrat in Q4 2017; Crow outraised Coffman by $35k in the last three months of 2017 as Coffman finished the year with his worst fundraising performance since 2011 (Coffman’s weak fundraising also followed a general downward trend for incumbent Republican Congressmen throughout the country).

Polling numbers released in February showed Crow with a 44-39 lead over Coffman — the first public poll showing Coffman trailing anyone since he was first elected in CD-6 in 2008. Coffman has been able to weather difficult opponents and political environments in the past, but 2018 is shaping up to be a monster of a blue wave. As Reuters reported on Monday:

Older, white, educated voters helped Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Now, they are trending toward Democrats in such numbers that their ballots could tip the scales in tight congressional races from New Jersey to California, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll and a data analysis of competitive districts shows.

Nationwide, whites over the age of 60 with college degrees now favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress by a 2-point margin, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polling during the first three months of the year. During the same period in 2016, that same group favored Republicans for Congress by 10 percentage points…

…“The real core for the Republicans is white, older white, and if they’re losing ground there, they’re going to have a tsunami,” [Pols emphasis] said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist who closely tracks political races. “If that continues to November, they’re toast.”

While the margins have varied over the last few months, Democrats continue to hold a strong lead over Republicans in the “generic congressional ballot” that measures how voters generally feel about candidates from the two major parties. The Washington Post reported on Monday that Republicans are growing so concerned about losing their majority in the House that they may shift most of their resources toward trying to preserve their slim majority in the Senate.

Coffman’s biggest political victory in recent months occurred last weekend, when he narrowly avoided a Primary challenge from little-known Republican Roger Edwards. Coffman had to scrap and claw to keep Edwards below the 30% threshold required for ballot access, and there is reason for Coffman to worry about being able to hold onto his Republican base in November. Meanwhile, Crow is consolidating support among Democrats; Levi Tillemann, the only other Democrat still in the race, is fading fast and seems unlikely to pose much of a threat to Crow’s nomination.

Coffman has consistently demonstrated a remarkable ability to overcome difficult opponents and tough political environments over the years, and we’ve learned from experience not to count him out.

But sooner or later, the odds catch up to everyone — even Mike Coffman.