<\/p>\n
DENVER \u2014 Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo said Tuesday he was abandoning Colorado\u2019s Republican gubernatorial race, confident he could win a primary but arguing he didn\u2019t want to harm the party\u2019s chances of capturing the governor\u2019s seat in November.<\/p>\n
Tancredo told Denver\u2019s KCNC-TV he believes he would win Colorado\u2019s crowded GOP primary. But he said he doesn\u2019t want to siphon resources that could allow a Democrat, especially U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, to win the election.<\/p>\n
Colorado\u2019s Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper is term-limited.<\/p>\n
Tancredo is a five-term former congressman from Denver\u2019s southern suburbs. He advocated for strict immigration laws and enforcement. He also contributed to conservative Breitbart News, formerly run by Steve Bannon, the onetime adviser to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Tancredo didn\u2019t immediately return a telephone message left by The Associated Press seeking comment.<\/p>\n
He told Colorado Politics on Tuesday that he didn\u2019t raise the money needed to win. He cited Polis, one of Congress\u2019 wealthiest members, as a factor in his decision.<\/p>\n
Tancredo raised $74,480 through the end of 2017 and had $62,996 in the bank, according to campaign finance reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not want to win a primary and lose a general, and I fear that was where we were going,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t do this and risk taking resources away from other Republican races.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eight Republicans and seven Democrats want to succeed Hickenlooper.<\/p>\n
GOP contenders include State Treasurer Walker Stapleton and businessman Vic Mitchell, among others. Polis, Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne and former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy are running on the Democratic side.<\/p>\n
Tancredo ran for governor in 2010 and 2014 \u2014 the first time as a candidate of the American Constitution Party. He lost the 2014 primary to former U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
wants to help chances for a Republican win<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,481,308,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-101594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-gov-john-hickenlooper","tag-local-elections","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101594"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=101594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}