Today, NBC News gave a first look at the DCCC’s first ad of the general election in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. The ad “Plain and Simple” may look familiar. It uses Rep. Coffman’s own 2016 ad and his promise to stand up to Trump to highlight his stunning record of now voting with President Trump 96 percent of the time, making him the most loyal of Colorado’s delegation.
“In 2016, Mike Coffman promised voters that he’d stand up to President Trump, but now he votes with him nearly 96 percent of the time in D.C., the most of any member in Colorado,” said DCCC spokesperson Rachel Irwin. “Coffman turned his back on the middle class when voting for the GOP Tax Scam that sabotages healthcare and protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions like asthma, cancer and diabetes. Down in the polls, Coffman’s broken promise is top of mind for Coloradans tired of his loyalty to Trump’s agenda.”
The ad highlights Mike Coffman’s support of Trump’s GOP Tax Scam that threatens Social Security and Medicare and sabotages access to affordable healthcare. Coffman’s Tax Scam prioritizes tax cuts for his wealthy donors while repealing a key provision of the ACA that will force Coloradans to pay more in premiums for healthcare. Coffman’s vote also provided the only grounds for the GOP and the Trump administration to file a lawsuit to dismantle protections for people with pre-existing conditions, like asthma, cancer and diabetes, in federal court. In describing the grounds for the lawsuit in June 2018, CNN noted:
“The filing came in a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas and a coalition of other Republican-led states who have filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas challenging the constitutionally of the Affordable Care Act. The states argue that after Congress eliminated the penalty for the individual mandate last year [through the Republican tax bill], effective in 2019, it destabilized other sections of the law… The provisions DOJ says should be invalidated are central to the ACA and would gut protections for those with pre-existing conditions.”
Beyond the tax bill’s multiple attacks on affordable healthcare, over the course of his career Coffman has voted 17 times to repeal the ACA and end protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. Even Coffman knows he’s vulnerable on this issue. He recently joined the who’s who of vulnerable House Republicans in signing onto a non-binding resolution that protects zero individuals with pre-existing conditions.
Read the full story below:
Democrats argue Colorado Republican failed on promise to “stand up” to Trump | NBC News
By Ben Kamisar
https://www.nbcnews.com/card/democrats-hit-vulnerable-colorado-republican-voting-trump-n910426
House Democrats are out with a new television ad that argues Colorado Republican Rep. Mike Coffman has failed on his 2016 promise to “stand up” to President Trump.
Coffman made waves last August when he ran an ad explicitly breaking from Trump, arguing “I don’t care for him much” and declaring he’d “stand up to him” if elected. That message was a heavy part of the Republican incumbent’s successful reelection campaign.
But now the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wants to use those words against him in a new spot that borrows footage from Coffman’s 2016 spot. In it, the ad argues that “Mike Coffman didn’t stand up to Donald Trump, plain and simple.”
“Instead, Coffman voted with Trump more than any Colorado member of Congress,” the ad’s narrator says, pointing to FiveThirtyEight.com analysis that Coffman voted with Trump 95.6 percent of the time.
NBC News obtained the new DCCC ad ahead of its Tuesday release. It will be the committee’s first spot in the Denver media market, where it has plans to spend significantly. Advertising Analytics data shows the group has booked about $2.3 million in ad spending there.
Republicans have long quibbled with those vote scores, since important votes are weighed equally alongside less important ones. And they cite Coffman’s vote against the GOP plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act last year as one way he’s not afraid to prioritize his constituents over his party.
But the DCCC believes that Coffman is vulnerable on health care nonetheless, and is weaponizing Coffman’s vote in favor of the GOP’s tax cut plan, which contained a repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. The party sees that tax vote as an opening to hammer Coffman on the issue that continues to poll as one of the most important for 2018 midterm voters, even despite his vote against the party’s health care plan.
“Coffman voted for Trump’s tax plan to sabotage our healthcare. He voted for Trump’s tax giveaway, threatening Social Security and Medicare, threatening protections for preexisting conditions,” the ad says.
Coffman has publicly called for a bipartisan approach to readdressing health care and joined 27 GOP lawmakers last week on a resolution calling on Congress to protect care for those with preexisting conditions.
Democrats have so far failed to knock off the Denver-area congressman in several tight races over the years. This cycle, he’s facing off against Army veteran Democrat Jason Crow.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found Crow up by 11 points over Coffman, but the race is expected to be one of the tighter ones of the cycle.