Is Mike Coffman the Anti-Trump Republican?

If there's a Republican on the ballot this year who deserves to be called the anti-Donald Trump, it might be Colorado's Mike Coffman. The Denver-area congressman is testing whether his strategy—running as the spiritual opposite of the GOP presidential nominee—won't pay off in a tough swing district.

Consider a new ad released Tuesday by Coffman. At the center of the 30-second spot is Mamay Worku, an Ethiopian-American social worker in the Denver area. "About a year ago, 30 Ethiopians were killed by ISIS," she says. "Mike Coffman was the only one that reached out to our community. He went to every Ethiopian church. He was there and he was sharing the sadness that we were actually experiencing at the time."

Since Ethiopia's 1974 civil war, Colorado has been a destination for refugees from the African nations of Ethiopia and Eritrea. There are an estimated 30,000 people of Ethiopian or Eritrean descent living in the Denver metro area. Coffman's ad may reach the small number of those residents who are eligible to vote. But the intended target is more likely white suburban swing voters—exactly the sort of voters Trump needs and seems increasingly unlikely to win—who see Coffman as a "different" kind of Republican from the vocally anti-refugee Trump.

Another Coffman ad, featured prominently on his campaign website, features a diverse cast of supporters who say the Republican is "one of us" and "not like other Republicans." The district, which includes the Denver suburbs of Aurora, Centennial, and Brighton, is nearly evenly partisan, with a +1 advantage for Democrats, according to the Cook partisan voting index. That means lots of independent voters are up for grabs. Statewide, Trump is losing independents, giving Clinton a significant advantage there. Coffman's district is also much more ethnically diverse than the one he was first elected to in 2008. The conservative Republican's tune on immigration has shifted accordingly (and he's even learned to speak Spanish).

Coffman hasn't been particularly vocal about his opposition to his party's nominee, though Coffman notably hasn't endorsed Trump and even released a TV ad in August promising to "stand up" to Trump if he became president. Unlike the draft-exempted Trump, the 61-year-old Coffman served in both the United States Army and the Marine Corps, seeing combat in the Persian Gulf War and deployment in the Iraq War. And Coffman's long tenure in public office, as a state representative, state senator, Colorado treasurer, Colorado secretary of state, and four-term House member stands in contrast to Trump's lack of political experience.