July 21, 2016 01:58 PM UTC

The Ties that Bind: Coffman Lashed Firmly to Trump

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• by: Colorado Pols

Tonight in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump will formally accept the GOP nomination for President (unless he doesn’t, which would be really interesting). Colorado Democrats aren’t waiting for Trump to make his intentions official to start lashing the GOP nominee — and his litany of questionable statements and policy ideas — to the side of Colorado Republican candidates such as Rep. Mike Coffman  (R-Aurora).

As Ernest Luning writes for the Colorado Statesman:

State Democrats launched an attack tying U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday — just hours before the former reality TV star is set to accept the GOP nomination — but Coffman says he’s the only candidate in the race who will stand up to whoever wins the presidency.

“Congressman Coffman has not only pledged to support Donald Trump,” the Democrats’ website charges, citing a comment made by a campaign spokeswoman on the day after the Iowa caucuses, “he has spent his entire political career championing the type of reckless, divisive and discriminatory agenda that created Donald Trump.”

Both sides in the hotly contested 6th Congressional District race — Coffman is facing a challenge by state Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora — have been treating Trump like kryptonite, with Democrats eager to lash Trump to Coffman, while Coffman has been distancing himself from the real estate mogul and some of his more controversial statements.

Much like Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma), Coffman is clearly trying to distance himself from a nominee who could be more toxic to down ballot races than any Presidential candidate in recent memory. On more than one occasion, Coffman has quite literally run away from reporters asking him about Trump. Unfortunately for Coffman — as is the case with Gardner as well — it is already a matter of public record that Coffman will support “the Republican nominee” for President. Here’s what Coffman campaign spokeswoman Kristin Strohm said about Coffman’s support for the Republican Presidential nominee back in February:

“Will Mike Coffman support the Republican nominee over Bernie or Hillary? The answer is obviously yes.”

No matter what Coffman says to the contrary about Trump, this particular ship has long since sailed. If Coffman doesn’t explicitly state himself that Strohm was wrong in saying that her boss would “obviously” support the Republican nominee, it doesn’t really matter what else he says about Trump. Coffman and Gardner can hem and haw about Trump every chance they get — but they have both already answered the only question that matters in this regard. Everything else, as we said with Gardner, is just semantics.