Another piece of evidence that Ogonowski managed to do as well as he did because of his position on immigration:

Midway through the race he latched onto an issue – immigration reform – of great local interest [bold mine-DL] that also showed he is not in lockstep with national Republicans unpopular in Massachusetts.

“He tapped into one issue that is where the national party went astray,” Tarr said. “Immigration is a real issue. But rather than say he was in favor of amnesty, he said people have to play by the rules. And that clearly gave him a lot of appeal to voters in the Merrimack Valley.

You never know what might happen when Republicans actually try to appeal to their constituents based on what they want.