March 01, 2022 01:04 PM UTC

Tom Tancredo Is Starting Up A Posse

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• by: Colorado Pols

Former Republican Congressman, presidential candidate, and anti-immigrant human blowtorch Tom Tancredo has been on a tear of endorsements for Republican candidates running in hot primaries. A “Tanc Ticket” of conservative contenders headed by Gino Campana for U.S. Senate and CD-8 candidate Lori Saine is coming together for the June 28th primary, along with Tancredo’s surprising 2020 endorsement that turned out to be prophetic: Rep. Lauren Boebert.

As Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports, add another Republican congressional primary candidate to the Tanc Ticket in the form of Rep. Dave Williams of Colorado Springs:

“The best thing Colorado can do in CD 5 is dump Doug Lamborn and elect Dave Williams to fight for us,” Tancredo said in a statement released by Williams’s campaign.

“On every issue that matters, from securing our borders to stopping out of control spending, Dave Williams has been a proven champion who will never sell us out or give in to the failed establishment leadership in both parties. Congress desperately needs more real leaders like Dave Williams, so please join me in supporting his campaign right away.”

A spokeswoman for Lamborn’s campaign declined to comment.

Tancredo, who whose fifth and final term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007-2009 overlapped with Lamborn’s first term, told Colorado Politics that he has enthusiastically endorsed one of Lamborn’s Republican challengers every time the incumbent has faced a primary…

So clearly there’s no love lost between Tancredo and Rep. Doug Lamborn, which is not surprising given how most of Tancredo’s Republican contemporaries seem to feel about the man from former President George W. Bush on down. In addition, though, Rep. Dave Williams ideologically is extremely tight with Tancredo on the issue of immigration–where Williams had carved a political niche out of spewing noxious anti-immigrant rhetoric from the safe harbor of his own identity politics.

Since Tancredo’s days as a political pariah in his own party the GOP has steadily marched in his direction on every issue including immigration. For this reason alone, it would be folly to underestimate the power of a Tancredo endorsement in a Republican primary. Tancredo’s grassroots credibility with the Republican base remains very strong. Just as important, Tanc is free of the taint of “selling out conservative values” that so many other Colorado Republicans have been forced into in order to win general elections in this increasingly blue state.

And he’s building a crew of candidates who, whatever other flaws they may possess, can argue the same.