The run of Democratic socialist upsets in Democratic primaries has spread from New York to Colorado. On June 30, 29-year-old Melat Kiros unseated 15-term incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette for the Democratic nomination in Colorado’s First Congressional District.
Kiros finished with 51 percent of the vote to DeGette’s 42 percent as ballots were counted Tuesday night, shocking many establishment Democrats. DeGette, who entered Congress in 1997 just months before Kiros was born, was no mealy-mouthed centrist. She was the Democratic Chief Deputy Whip from 2005 to 2019, served as a manager of the attempted 2021 Trump impeachment proceedings, and was a progressive party-line voter throughout her congressional career.
DeGette’s loss to Kiros could hold serious implications for whether the old progressive guard is capable of containing its formerly-fringe elements.
In the new politics of deep-blue primaries, progressive credentials appear to no longer be enough, even for a longtime incumbent.
Kiros’s campaign is perhaps a textbook example for the far-left progressive candidate looking to unseat an entrenched Democrat. In Kiros’s own words, “The ‘any Democrat will do’ era is over.”
Kiros’s platform fully embraced the priorities and language of the activist left: Medicare for All, ‘Housing First’ solutions to homelessness, universal childcare, and an arms embargo against Israel. With backing from groups including the Democratic Socialists of America, Justice Democrats, the Colorado Working Families Party, and Sunrise Movement, Kiros framed herself and the race as a referendum on DeGette and a party establishment too tied to institutional donors and corporate PACs.
The foreign-policy plank is not an incidental quirk; in fact, Kiros’s policy on Israel and Gaza has been a central part of her campaign. Her rhetoric spans from declining to call June 2025’s Boulder firebombing attack at a vigil for Israeli hostages antisemitic, supporting a complete arms embargo against Israel, and calling both the Hamas Oct. 7 attack and the 9/11 terror attacks “inevitable” outcomes of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy.
With Kiros and many other successful Democratic socialist primary campaigns this cycle, the talking points and language that used to be the realm of campus protests and online activism – anti-Israel, anti-corporate PACs and pro-Gaza rhetoric – seems to have found a real lane in electoral contests. Talking points that were niche activist discourse on X two or three years ago are now viable platform points, especially in safe blue districts where low-turnout primaries can be more decisive than the general election.
Kiros’s victory and similar wins for Democratic socialists in deep-blue New York districts should not be dismissed as one-off upsets. In 2024, 87 percent of congressional races were effectively decided in primary elections. Safe Democratic districts are becoming laboratories for the party’s emerging left, where candidates can run on socialist, anti-Israel, or anti-party establishment platforms without needing to persuade the broader general election electorate.
DeGette’s loss to Kiros could hold serious implications for whether the old progressive guard is capable of containing its formerly-fringe elements. For parts of the Democratic base, progressive is just no longer enough.
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