Tancredo won in that he forced a runoff with a VERY popular, VERY conservative (on every other issue) Republican in a VERY conservative state. That seems like quite a win to me.
Cannon won because he won, and will win in November, and the GOP will hold the seat.
So here you have Cannon, who is conservative on every other issue, holding; and in SD you have Bilbray, who is liberal on almost every other issue, winning because of immigration. Seems like a wash to me.
It's not a "single issue." It's a CRITICAL issue that sooner or later must be dealt with. Thank God for the House holding the line on this hideous abomination from the Senate---but one "open borders" guy winning and one "fence" guy losing in a primary is hardly a referendum on anything.
What the anti-Tancredo people should take from this is this:
TWO YEARS AGO THIS WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE BEEN ON THE RADAR.
TWO YEARS AGO THIS WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE BEEN ON THE RADAR
Uh yes it was. Matt Throckmorton made immigration his main issue against Chris Cannon in 2004. He got 42% of the primary vote.
in 2006 John Jacob spends 6 times as much money as Throckmorton and the race generates massive local and some national interest and Jacob get's a whopping 2 percentage point gain.