This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at coloradosun.com.
Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist, defeated U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette on Tuesday in a closely watched Democratic primary that saw Denver voters reject Colorado’s longest serving member of Congress in favor of youth and change.
The Associated Press called the 1st Congressional District race at 10:03 p.m., with Kiros leading DeGette, 68, by 6 percentage points. University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, 62, was trailing in a distant third.
On paper, the race featured two progressive candidates with overwhelmingly similar views. Both support Medicare for all. Both want to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But the campaign — like countless other races across the country in recent months — became a referendum on a Democratic establishment that voters increasingly see as out of touch and incapable of delivering on its promises.
“Denver voters of all ages, of all races, of all religions sent a clear message: We will not wait,” said Kiros, who was endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders late in the race. “We will not wait to take the fight to Donald Trump and the oligarchy, we will not wait to abolish ICE and pass Medicare for all. We will not wait to put an end to the politics of the past, to get big money out of our politics.”
Kiros thanked DeGette for her fight for reproductive rights in her victory speech. “She helped build the community that helped welcome my family to this city and to this district, and I’ll always be grateful for that,” she said.
Kiros is a former attorney who most recently worked as a barista while pursuing a graduate degree in public policy. Her family immigrated from Ethiopia to Colorado when she was a baby — and while DeGette was serving her first term in office.
Nia Temu, an unaffiliated voter, cast her ballot last week for Kiros. Temu said she was drawn to her breadth of work experience.
“She seems like she’s more focused on the working everyday person,” Temu, 25, said while strolling through the Tivoli Student Union on Denver’s Auraria Campus Tuesday afternoon.
With Tuesday’s victory, Kiros is all but assured to become Denver’s next congresswoman. The 1st District is a Democratic stronghold that hasn’t elected a Republican since 1970.
In November, she’ll face Republican Christy Peterson, who does office management and accounting at a construction company.
The results were a shocking defeat for DeGette, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who is serving her 15th term in office. Over her career, she rose to the top Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Health. She played a leading role in reauthorizing the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 2007, and helped draft the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
“I have always voted for her,” said Donna Vreeland, a retired nurse who volunteered for DeGette’s campaign this year. “She fights for us, and that’s important. I want somebody who’s on my side.”
But while DeGette touted her deep experience as an asset, Kiros cast it as a liability, saying that DeGette has become too closely tied to the industries she regulates — and too dependent on their campaign donations.
That resonated with unaffiliated voter Andrew Piro, who cast his ballot for Kiros at a time he believes the Democratic Party is failing.
Kiros, Piro said, “most closely aligns with my values and a strong feeling that the Democratic party leadership is far too entrenched with corporate interests and needs to be shaken up.”
At Kiros’ watch party at The Broadway in Denver, the mood was jubilant throughout the night. The crowd was young, democratic socialist, and shouting at each other over Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar. At 7 p.m., when someone yelled that the polls closed, the crowd began screaming and didn’t stop for three minutes straight, until a chant of “Melat! Melat! Melat!” overtook the roar.
Influencers and local supporters took turns on the stage, pointing their cameras toward the crowd and riling them up. An air horn sounded.
Across town at Carboy Winery, DeGette’s supporters gathered for a quieter evening, mingling over wine and appetizers.
Support for Israel defined the campaign
DeGette’s support for Israel was a dividing line between the two throughout the campaign.
Kiros was fired from her law firm after writing an article defending pro-Palestinian student protesters. She said she opposes all military aid to Israel, and accuses the country of genocide. DeGette said she supports continued U.S. funding for Israel’s defense, but not offensive weapons.
In the final weeks of the campaign, DeGette accused Kiros of antisemitism for comments she made in recent interviews. In one exchange with 9News that became a subject of attack ads, Kiros declined to describe the deadly 2025 firebombing of a Jewish community rally in Boulder as an act of antisemitism.
“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” Kiros said. “All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people.”
But rather than sour Democratic primary voters on Kiros, DeGette’s attacks may have only solidified perceptions that she’s out of touch with younger generations, who are more likely than older voters to support Palestine and be critical of U.S. military support for Israel. Just last week, a U.N. report accused Israeli security forces of deliberately killing Palestinian children — actions that it said amounted to genocide.
Around 7:30 p.m., Hasan Piker, an influential Twitch streamer and political commentator, pulled up a seat at Kiros’ watch party in front of a computer where results were updating. Piker, who has millions of followers on Twitch and Instagram, has also had allegations of antisemitism lobbed at him for his diatribes against the Zionist movement.
A banner at Kiros’ watch party Tuesday night was printed with the words “Jews say no to genocide in our name,” hung by the nonprofit Jewish Voice for Peace.
“I was disappointed with the way that interview was broken down,” said Ella Paul, a member leader of Jewish Voice for Peace, about the 9News interview. “I feel like when you take the full scope of what Melat is saying, that everyone deserves to live in safety, Jewish members of our community are absolutely a part of that. Nothing really seems scary about what she said, at least not to me personally.”
Max Mankoff, a 26-year-old Denver voter, helps run the Instagram account @jews4melat. In mid-June, Mankoff helped organize a “Shabbat for Melat” event.
“It’s really hurtful,” Mankoff said of the antisemitism allegations. “When people smear those who are actually allies for Jewish people, it takes the attention away from the actual dangers. There are neo-Nazis out there who want to hurt Jews, and then there are people like Melat who will sit down with us and have an interfaith event.”
Mankoff said they got emotional turning in their ballot for Kiros. “I just haven’t really felt this sense of hope in a long time,” Makoff said. “It’s just really nice to feel seen by a candidate, and to know that they actually care about people and not corporate money.”
Money flowed to help DeGette as race tightened
A group of super PACs entered the race in the final weeks before the primary to try to shore up DeGette’s chances of winning reelection by spending well over $2 million on TV and digital ads.
The biggest spender was the Pro-Choice Majority Action, which dropped $1.5 million on the race on behalf of DeGette. The PAC is funded by the EDW Action Fund, another federal super PAC, that works to elect women to public office who support abortion rights.
EDW Action Fund’s donors include several groups that have been linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
Project 218, a federal super PAC, spent $400,000 in support of DeGette. Its donors are individuals from all over the country, including David Farhim, a researcher at OpenAI; investor David Stiepleman; and investor Ben Appen.
Finally, the Mile High Accountability Project, yet another federal super PAC, spent $485,000 in support of DeGette. Its main donor is the U.S. Accountability Project, a Denver nonprofit that doesn’t disclose its donors and is what The Colorado Sun calls a dark money group.
Both the PAC and the nonprofit are registered to Scott Martinez, a Democratic campaign finance attorney who once served as Denver’s city attorney.
Kiros received some super PAC help in the race, too.
Justice Democrats, the liberal super PAC, spent about $500,000 on the race in support of Kiros, while American Priorities, a group that has vowed to counter pro-Israel money in Democratic primaries, made a last-minute purchase of about $140,000 in TV ad time in Denver in the days leading up to the election.
Candidates and PACs are prohibited from coordinating with each other.
The end of an era
DeGette was first elected to Congress in 1996, when she beat former Denver City Council member Tim Sandos in the Democratic primary. She won that race by 12 percentage points and the general election by 17 points.
Since then, she’s never come close to losing her seat.
That is, until now.
Vreeland, the longtime DeGette supporter, said she was frustrated that anti-incumbent sentiment could win out over experience, saying DeGette had stood up for women’s rights and been an effective legislator.
“I’m tired of hearing they want change, because it’s a bunch of hot air,” Vreeland said.
While Kiros’ supporters celebrated late into the night, DeGette’s staff began to clean up before 10 p.m., telling the crowd to go home. The race, they said, would be too close to call Tuesday night.
The congresswoman never made an appearance.
Colorado Sun reporter Erica Breunlin contributed to this report.
