Colorado’s race for governor — at least for the general election — got a lot more interesting this week with the early exit of former Congressman Tom Tancredo. Hopefully, the GOP front-runner’s departure makes the primary contest more competitive and substantive across a broader range of issues facing the state than the hardliner’s focus on illegal immigration.

Tancredo, as friendly and warm as his core supporters and others find him, so frequently served as a hyper-partisan warrior — by his own estimation, a lightning rod — that his presence in the race threatened to lock the debate in Trump Land. Tancredo’s 2008 presidential candidate race helped pave the way for Donald Trump’s signature issue. He became tied to former White House aide and Breitbart chairman Stephen Bannon and has supported this divisive presidency.

What happened? Since the day Tancredo launched his third shot at the governor’s office last fall, most every pundit and operative counted him the likely Republican nominee. And though few favored his chances at winning the general election in a state Hillary Clinton carried by 5 percentage points, the expectation has been that the true believer cared less about winning and more about forcing his party to the hard right.

Tancredo blames his exit on a lack of money. After entering the race in October, he closed out the year with only $75,000 in campaign cash, whereas Republican Walker Stapleton, Colorado’s treasurer, collected $750,000.

Why didn’t the money come? Certainly we’ve heard the Tea Party argument again and again over the last several years that what’s needed is strict adherence to conservative values, and The Tanc had that without doubt, and with extra flourish. (He once said Barack Obama posed more of a threat to the United States than al-Qaeda.)

But things have changed. Trump’s poll numbers remain lackluster despite a roaring economy, his delivery on his promised immigration crackdown and passage of massive tax cuts for the top earners. Anyone paying attention can see that playing divider in chief isn’t gaining broader appeal. Maybe after such developments as the fall of Roy Moore, the agony of Charlottesville and the disgrace of Bannon, funding a candidate defined as white nationalist hardliner lost its attraction.

No? It must have been behind-the-scenes Republican manipulators who pushed him out? Doesn’t wash. When has the Republican-turned-Constitution-Party-turned-Republican ever listened to the establishment?

Tancredo tells us he feared placing Republicans in a position to lose to Democrats in November. His longtime supporters didn’t want a repeat of past losses in a state he says is getting so blue it’s becoming an East California. And after Bannon “fell of the edge of the Earth,” the likelihood of a deep-pocketed independent expenditure committee coming to his aid did also.

Add all that to lacking sufficient fire in the belly caused by these hyper-partisan times so vicious they give even the longtime firebrand pause, and the 72-year-old said continuing would feel like jumping out of a plane with a twisted parachute.

We’re pleased to see Tancredo step aside, and hope Republicans take this opportunity to send a more sensible challenger to face the Democrats in November.

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