The Tancredo Factor

Tom Tancredo recently announced his intentions to run for Governor on a third party ticket.

Tancredo called for Dan Maes and Scott McInnis to both announce if they win the primary, they will drop out so the GOP executive board can pick a replacement. 2 years of grassroots, tea party, 912, and activists movements for nothing then.

Tancredo would definitely be a threat to Republican's chances of winning the Governor's race. However, if he did run, history would remember Tancredo screwed the GOP's chances, not Maes' clerical error or McInnis' plagiarism scandal. While Tancredo would have some momentum at the beginning of his campaign and shortly after the primary, we predict the campaign would sink a few weeks out to the extent that Tancredo wouldn't even be able to win a single county.

Tancredo is mostly a single issue, anti-immigration type of guy. This represents a small minority in the GOP. There is a strong difference between caring about the illegal immigration and only caring about the illegal immigration problem. While some would suggest that McInnis would be a stronger pick for Republicans in this scenario, we see the exact opposite. Since McInnis has been viewed to be more moderate than Tancredo, a larger portion of the far right would break off to Tancredo, while if Maes was the nominee, he would keep much more of the party base and there is no chance Tancredo would move to the middle to win this.

While Tancredo says the choice is in the hands of Dan Maes and Scott McInnis, we all know that neither are going to drop out easily this far in, and surely both would not drop out, therefore if Tancredo is serious this time, he will run, and he will lose.