Democratic socialist Melat Kiros has unseated long-serving US Representative Diana DeGette in Colorado's primary elections held on Tuesday, after a campaign in which support for Israel became a wedge issue among voters. The Associated Press reported that Kiros defeated DeGette for the Democratic nomination in the deep-blue first congressional district centered on Denver.
Victory Follows New York Primaries
The victory of Kiros came a week after New York voters unseated two Democratic congressional incumbents and replaced a third who was retiring with candidates who had campaigned on standing up to Israel amid accusations that it was carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
Kiros, 29, was born in Ethiopia in 1997 – the year DeGette arrived in Congress – and graduated from law school at the University of Notre Dame in 2022. The following year, she wrote a blog post rejecting accusations that law students who protested Israel's counterattack after 7 October were antisemitic. The New York law firm where Kiros was working fired her after she refused to take the post down, and she then went into politics.
Endorsements and Campaign Platform
After announcing her run for Congress, Kiros picked up endorsements from progressive senator Bernie Sanders, as well as the Democratic Socialists of America and Justice Democrats, progressive groups that had also been involved in New York's primaries. Kiros sought to mount a generational challenge to the 68-year-old DeGette, a member of the congressional progressive caucus, and made concerns about US support for Israel prominent in her campaign.
In an interview with Colorado Public Radio (CPR), Kiros accused the country of carrying out a genocide in Gaza and called for the United States to impose an arms embargo. DeGette opposes providing offensive arms to Israel, but told CPR that she believes the country has a right to exist and defend itself.
Controversial Comments
The representative's campaign criticized comments Kiros made in a recent interview, including a refusal to say whether she considered a 2025 firebombing attack on pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, to be motivated by antisemitism. “I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” Kiros told 9News. “All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed. I don’t even know what the people that were at that protest believed, too.”
Kiros also said in the interview that she viewed the 9/11 attacks as “inevitable” for the United States “in that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East, that forced people to believe that an act of violence was the only response”.
General Election Outlook
Kiros is heavily favored to win the general election in the district, which gave Kamala Harris 77% of the vote in 2024.
Other Colorado Primary Results
In the race to replace term-limited Democratic governor Jared Polis, Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser edged out US senator Michael Bennet, according to the Associated Press. Though Bennet, who has represented Colorado in the Senate since 2009, had entered the race an early favorite, Weiser scuppered his campaign by accusing him of not taking a hard enough line against Donald Trump's cabinet nominees.
In the Democratic Senate primary, incumbent John Hickenlooper won re-nomination over Julie Gonzales, a state senator who had challenged him from the left. He will face Republican nominee Mark Baisley, a state senator who ran unopposed.
