Republican turnout machine revs up in Aurora for Mike Coffman, other candidates

Republican volunteers and staffers fill a phone-banking room in the GOPs Aurora field office to support candidates including U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, shown in upper right corner making calls, on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014. (Jon Murray, The Post)

Mike Coffman is about as confident ahead of Tuesdays election as a congressman can be when he represents one the nations most competitive U.S. House districts. For that, the three-term Republican incumbent challenged by Democrat Andrew Romanoff this year can thank volunteers such as Alex Mowery.

The 16-year-old high school junior has driven from Broomfield to the Colorado Republicans Aurora field office once a week to light a fire on the telephone keypad.

During one 10-hour shift a couple weeks ago, Mowery said, he blazed through 1,693 phone calls. Its the field offices record.

The vast majority of those calls go unanswered, but the dialers leave voice mails and keep plugging along until they get the rare live undecided voter. In the final days of the campaign, it tends to be a positive reaction, Mowery says. Most people just want to tell you if they voted or not, and few are still undecided.

The phone-banking operation was humming Saturday afternoon on the seventh floor of an Aurora office building, with the focus shifting to nudging Republicans who hadnt yet returned their ballots. Colorado GOP Chairman Ryan Call and Coffman himself were dialing calls, as Coffman has done most days during the campaign.

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (AP file)

I feel like the people on the Republican ticket are really good guys, Mowery said, and hes mindful of whats at stake. Government is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, engine to drive positive change.

Watch video about GOP outreach for Coffman.

The Colorado Republicans say they finally are matching or even surpassing the Democrats much-vaunted turnout ground game this year, but theyve declined to reveal details. On Saturday, that was the reason given when campaign officials told Denver Post reporters and a photographer they wouldnt allow the media to follow volunteers canvassing activity. They limited access to interviews with volunteers in Aurora to those stopping through the field office.

Read the original here:
Republican turnout machine revs up in Aurora for Mike Coffman, other candidates

Related Posts

Comments are closed.