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May 06, 2015 02:13 PM UTC

Sen. Morgan Carroll Ponders CD-6 Run

  • 26 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Sen. Morgan Carroll (D).
Sen. Morgan Carroll (D).

Potentially game-changing news in the 2016 race to defend/pick up Rep. Mike Coffman’s swing CD-6 seat, as the Denver Post’s Mark Matthews reports this afternoon:

State Sen. Morgan Carroll is meeting next week with national Democrats to talk about the possibility of her running for Congress in the U.S. House seat now held by Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, said two fellow party members.

On the agenda for her Washington visit is a powwow with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which acts the hub of the party’s House fundraising and strategy. A DCCC aide confirmed the meeting.

Carroll also is expected to spend time with officials from Emily’s List, a campaign group that backs Democratic women who support abortion rights…

A run by term-limited and popular Senate Minority Leader Morgan Carroll could be a major boost for Democrats, seeking the winning combination to pick up what remains on paper one of the nation’s most competitive congressional seats. The 2011 redistricting process refashioned Coffman’s district from Tom Tancredo’s old conservative stronghold into a winnable prospect for Democrats, but Coffman’s shameless reinvention resilience in two subsequent election cycles has proven a major frustration.

As a presidential year, 2016 could prove a much a more opportune election cycle for Democrats to pick up this seat. Unknown and underfunded Democratic candidate Joe Miklosi came unexpectedly close to taking out Coffman in 2012, a showing that may better predict how Carroll would fare in 2016 than Andrew Romanoff’s drubbing last year in an election that was highly favorable to the GOP. Carroll’s deep ties to the district as a longtime representative of Aurora in the state legislature gives her an advantage that the two previous Democratic candidates lacked.

Perhaps the biggest question if Carroll does get in this race is how it might affect Coffman’s plans for 2016–increasingly viewed as a likely candidate to challenge Sen. Michael Bennet, we’re not completely sure whether Carroll’s entry into the CD-6 race would push Coffman to run for Senate…or motivate fellow Republicans to keep him in CD-6 to defend the seat. If she does get in this race, we’re pretty confident that Morgan Carroll will be the greatest challenge Coffman has ever faced. And without Coffman to defend CD-6, she is quite likely to take this seat away from the GOP for as long as she wants it.

Stay tuned, a lot is riding on this decision–for both parties.

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26 thoughts on “Sen. Morgan Carroll Ponders CD-6 Run”

  1. What else does she have to do since she is term-limited? Run for mayor of Aurora? Besides, it's probably going to be an open seat because Coffman is going to run against Bennet.

    She should do it. Fortune favors the bold!

      1. AWESOME news. She would have won in 2012, and maybe 2014 too. This seat is hers for the taking next year no matter what Coffman does…

  5. 1. Please stop calling CD6 a swing anything. The only evidence it really is swingish is people keep saying it. The voters prove otherwise.

    B. I like Senator Carroll, BUT this not a slam dunk.

    3. Of course Coffman is going g to be replace Bennet. Bennet is just not lefty enough to win in Colorado.

    1. Mad–

      In CD 6 2014, we lost the Hispanic vote, so we got stuck with Coff-Coff-Coffman again.  If Hil is running on a believable (and it has to be really, really believable) immigration reform platform plank, the Latinos may well come out to vote, giving us a decent shot at CD 6 2016 going Dem.

    1. I already said Senator Bennet is not far enough left to win.  To win statewide in Colorado a candidate should be pro Medicare expansion, pro Social Security increase, higher taxes, amnesty for persons in the country without status, solar, eliminating farm subsidies and oil and gas extraction subsidies, expansion of Medicaid and SNAP. Bennett just isn't lefty enough to win

  7. If Coffman decides to run for Senate, leaving it open, Carroll has a real shot. If he wants to keep his CD6 seat, it's unlikely she'll push him out .

  8. This is exactly the candidate we need. Deep roots in the district, incredibly smart and strategic, and a hard working WOMAN. If we rally behind Carroll, we'll win CD 6 next year. 

    1. Wasn't Romanoff exactly the kind of candidate we needed? If Coffman wants to keep the seat instead of running against Bennet, don't anybody kid themselves that unseating him in CD6 will be anything but another log shot. He's already won twice in the new more competitive CD6.  I would see Carroll unseating Coffman in CD6 as more of a long shot than Coffman unseating Bennet for Senate. Sorry to rain on the parade.

        1. Speaking of which, while I was on a family visit to Chicago, enjoying weirdly warm gorgeous sunny spring weather for a change, was Colorado been beamed to the Pacific Northwest? 

          1. Don't know why my editing is so sloppy today! Was been beamed? And the rest of my comments have the same kinds of mistakes. Wish I could blame it all on something technical. Maybe sleep deprivation.

      2. No. Romanoff was a carpet bagger and a male. The complete opposite of Carroll. This is comparing apples to oranges. Carroll is much more qualified to run than Romanoff or Miklosi. 

        1. Didn't Morgan Carroll grow up in Aurora? And wasn't her father a state legislator back in the 70's? Coffman won't be able to call her a carpetbagger.

      3. From what I've seen, Romanoff isn't very good at putting together a campaign. When he could do everything himself, dude was a charismatic dynamo that easily won his safe district. Once it came time to staff up and cover some more miles, things went pretty pear-shaped.

        I like Morgan, and I think she has a good chance, but there really isn't a good way to predict how she'll play in the larger arena. It's certainly worth a shot

  9. I knew it.   It's Nancy Pelosi who is behind this.  Mike Coffman told me so in an email.  So, he knows trouble when he sees it.

    I think Morgan will excite the "old" Obama coalition in CD6.  Couple that with the Hillary forces and we might have something here.  

    Fired Up!!

     

  10. I'd like to see Ms. Carroll run in CD-6, and also a primary/debate for Senator Bennet.

    (Hmm – what if Ms. Carroll primaried Bennet?  I'd definitely vote for a Senator Carroll! 🙂 )

     

    1. you can bet, if he doesn't get primaried, it will be hard to tell him and Coffman apart…

      Why would he go anywhere but further right?…Adelson, Dimon, and the Koch Boys, et al, have oodles and oodles of noodles…so to speak… 

    2. Bennett was already primaried by an ostensibly more liberal candidate–although pretty much interchangeable to the public–he won and the Dems weren't any better for it. When will we will, as a party, pull our heads out of our collective ass?

      The race for CD6 is FAR from Carroll's for the taking. Pols would do well to remember to thumping they took in their 2014 predictions. 

      1. Except Romanoff, former Clinton camp triangulating Colorado DLC Chair, wasn't an iota more liberal. And in his run for CD6 what was the first thing he talked about in his first ad? A requirement for a balanced federal budget? Be still my grass roots Dem heart.

        He tried really hard back when he primaried Bennet to be perceived as the progressive champion when, in fact, he was highly interchangeable. Maybe if he'd been elected he would have had a slightly different take than Bennet on TPP but we have no way of knowing. One thing we do know. He's no good at all at winning elections outside of a completely safe Dem district so there's not much need to spend too much time pondering that hypothetical.

        We also know that only a centrist Dem can win statewide in Colorado while an R can be pretty conservative and win. That said, if Bennet wasn't the incumbent already there's plenty of room in the center range for an electable Dem candidate not quite so Republican lite repulsive to the base. But he is the incumbent and it's going to be him or a typical rightie Republican this time around. Wish it could be otherwise but if wishes were horses….

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