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Tom Tancredo

American politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ159720
Source-derived summary

Thomas Gerard Tancredo (; born December 20, 1945) is an American politician from Colorado who represented the state's sixth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009 as a Republican. He ran for President of the United States during the 2008 election, and was the Constitution Party's unsuccessful nominee for Governor of Colorado in 2010.

Tancredo was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 1976 and served two terms. After working in the United States Department of Education during the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, he was elected to the United States Congress, and served five terms. He decided to not seek re-election in 2008, instead running a presidential campaign, centered on the issues of illegal immigration and terrorism. He dropped out of the race in December 2007 to assist former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in his campaign for the nomination.

Tancredo announced on July 26, 2010, that he planned to change parties and run for Governor of Colorado on the American Constitution Party ticket. He received 617,030 votes (36.7%), coming in second place, well ahead of the Republican Party nominee Dan Maes, who got about 11% of the vote.

Tancredo ran for governor in 2014, this time as a Republican, because of his opposition to Colorado governor John Hickenlooper's refusal to execute convicted murderer Nathan Dunlap, and because of Hickenlooper's attempts to pass gun control legislation. Tancredo competed for the Republican Party's nomination with Bob Beauprez, Steve House, Greg Brophy, Mike Kopp, and Scott Gessler.

Editorial summary

“Tom Tancredo” enters the record as american politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tancredo, American and politician can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1945, 1999, 2009, 2008—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1945-12-20. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Tancredo, American and politician.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Tom Tancredo” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Tancredo, American and politician provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q159720. VIAF identifies the subject as 119497171. The Library of Congress control number is no2001086485. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 1999, 2009 and 2008.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Tom Tancredo”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Tom Tancredo primary sources, Tom Tancredo archive and Tancredo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Tom Tancredo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.