Bob Beauprez won the Republican primary in the Colorado governor's race Tuesday night, defeating Tom Tancredo, who is flatly against illegal immigration but who supported the push to legalize marijuana in the state.
Beauprez, who represented Colorado's 7th Congressional District from 2003-2007, will next square off with incumbent Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who first took office in 2011. Hickenlooper is no shoe-in for re-election in November, thanks in part to the fact that he raised taxes and signed an unpopular gun control bill into law.
With 70 percent of precincts reporting, Beauprez earned just under 31 percent of the votes and was declared the winner. Tancredo garnered a little more than 26 percent, while Secretary of State Scott Gessler had 23.5 percent and former state Sen. Mike Kopp had 19.4 percent.
Recent poll numbers showed Tancredo, 68, held a slight advantage over the 65-year-old Beauprez entering Tuesday's four-man showdown.
Beauprez was the Republican nominee in the 2006 Colorado governor's election but lost to Bill Ritter. Tancredo ran for governor in 2010 as a member of the American Constitution Party, but his bid was unsuccessful. Before that, he represented the 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House from 1999-2009, and was a candidate for president in the 2008 election.
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