Tom Tancredo drops out of Colorado gubernatorial race

Former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo (R) has withdrawn from the state’s gubernatorial race, the candidate announced Tuesday. 

Tancredo, who faced a crowded primary field in a state that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won in 2016, said he could not see a path forward for the campaign and did not want to face blame for losing to his leading Democratic opponent, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), CBS Denver reports. 

Tancredo, a former congressman and immigration hard-liner, met with former Breitbart News chief and past senior White House adviser Stephen Bannon to discuss a possible run in September. At the time Bannon had begun backing pro-Trump, anti-establishment candidates for races across the country. 

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After leaving Congress in 2009, Tancredo lost bids for the Colorado governor’s office in 2010 and 2014, for the Constitution Party and then the GOP. He also ran a brief campaign for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, earning support for his tough stances on immigration and border security. 

Polis, a multimillionaire from Denver and the first openly gay parent in Congress, has said he wants to be a “vanguard of the opposition” against President Trump as governor. He has emerged as a frontrunner among the Democratic candidates.

Tancredo has drawn criticism for once saying that former President Obama was a “more serious threat to America than al Qaeda,” and for promoting the “birther” theory that Obama was born in Kenya and not a U.S. citizen. 

Tancredo had entered the race to replace Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) — who cannot run again due to term limits — last November.