Coppins began his career at Newsweek and broke the story that Jon Huntsman Jr., would resign his ambassadorship in China and run for President.

[1] Coppins joined BuzzFeed to cover the 2012 presidential race, becoming an important source on Governor Mitt Romney's Latter-day Saint (Mormon) faith.

[2] In 2012, Coppins was one of the "30 under 30" media pundits in Forbes magazine[3] and also listed along with three other young BuzzFeed News journalists as one of Politico's "ten breakout reporters of 2012.

In 2015, Coppins published The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House.

The book covers 25 years of American politics, based on 45 interviews with Romney and thousands of private emails, text messages, and diary entries.