A democratic socialist candidate crushed U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in a preliminary intraparty vote at last weekend’s Denver County assembly — with Melat Kiros outorganizing a veteran lawmaker who’s been in office longer than Kiros has been alive.
The shock drubbing, delivered ahead of a formal assembly vote next week, was among signs that Democrats participating in the party’s caucuses and assemblies are dissatisfied with incumbent officials. Some other incumbents, including U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper in his reelection race and Sen. Michael Bennet in the governor’s race, have been leaning on the petition route to the ballot rather than facing primary opponents at the March 28 state assembly.
At the Denver Democrats’ county assembly on Saturday, Kiros — a 28-year-old doctoral student and former lawyer — won 646 votes, or 63%, compared to DeGette’s 336 votes, or 32%. The result was the first time DeGette, 68, has lost a county assembly vote since she entered Congress in 1997, Kiros’ campaign said.
If that level of support holds at the party’s 1st Congressional District assembly on March 27, Kiros will cruise to a place on the June 30 primary ballot. DeGette, meanwhile, cannot afford to lose any more ground: If fewer than 30% of delegates support her at that virtual assembly, she won’t make the ballot at all. Time is rapidly running out to switch tactics and get on the ballot by submitting voter signatures, with petitions due to the state on Wednesday.
“I think itap a testament to the organizing we were doing and the lack of organizing (DeGette) was doing on her part — and her thinking she would coast through,” Kiros said in an interview. ” … It was just an incredible, incredible day, and I’m really proud of what our campaign was able to accomplish.”
DeGette campaign spokeswoman Jennie Peek-Dunstone said the congresswoman “received more than the required threshold and we are confident she will be on the primary ballot.”
The polling win does not, by itself, mean that Kiros is a front-runner to prevail in the June 30 primary election, and her campaign will still need to flip DeGette delegates if it wants to keep the congresswoman off the ballot. That’s far from a sure thing, especially for a candidate with the experience and name recognition of DeGette.
But it does speak to the Kiros’ campaign’s organizing capabilities, and the results also represent something of a wakeup call, said Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver.
“DeGette and others know their party and the people associated with it are not terribly popular right now,” he said. “Democrats in general elections have the wind at their back right now, but incumbents in primaries — not so much. Itap a harder environment.”
DeGette faces progressive challenge
A first-time candidate and daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, Kiros previously worked as a lawyer in New York. She was fired after writing in late 2023 criticizing law firms — including her own — that had signed onto a letter opposing anti-Israel protests. She then moved back to Colorado and entered a Ph.D program at the University of Colorado Denver.
She’s run a progressive challenge to DeGette, backing “Medicare for All,” universal child care and an embargo on arms sales to Israel, a nation that she has accused of committing a genocide against Palestinians.
Kiros has also been endorsed by the Justice Democrats, a left-wing Democratic group that’s backed candidates like now-U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna and Ilhan Omar.
In her Denver assembly speech Saturday, DeGette accused Kiros of lying about her — a comment that drew boos from the audience.
Already a longtime supporter of Medicare for All, DeGette has backed more progressive causes in the past year. She for a halt to providing offensive arms to Israel, and she told assembly-goers Saturday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished and that she wouldn’t support any funding for the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. Those pledges drew cheers.
Kiros’ preference poll win was fueled by pre-assembly organizing, her campaign and supporters said, particularly on the part of the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Deep Singh Badhesha, a DSA member who supported Kiros’ campaign, said organizers had group chats, stickers, food — they’d even set up a system to find babysitters for those who needed it. Such organization also helped the campaign sidestep technology problems that delayed the assembly, he said.
Those tech problems have contributed to lingering concerns among the DeGette campaign about assignment of delegates for the assembly next week, though her campaign said she was not disputing Kiros’ polling victory.
The assembly results come amid a broader surge of challenges to incumbent Democrats nationwide by often-younger and more progressive candidates. More than a dozen Democratic U.S. House members will face primary challenges this spring and summer, .
Some of the contests pit older incumbents against newcomers. Some feature moderates competing against liberals. Some of the matchups have resulted from the nationwide redistricting wars that redrew incumbents’ seats. Most of the races share a common ingredient: challengers seeking to move past the party’s losses in 2024 — and to bring more energy to the fight against President Donald Trump.
“Within the Democratic Party, itap this notion of how you best respond to a country that Trump is dominating when you’re all, as Democrats, unhappy with that,” Paul Teske, a professor at CU Denver and former longtime dean of its School of Public Affairs, told The Denver Post on Tuesday. (Kiros was a student of Teske’s last year.)
In addition to Kiros, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James is also running against DeGette in the primary. She did not participate in the assembly process Saturday and planned to file a petition to make the ballot.
‘Scared of the base’
Elsewhere, in the Democratic race for governor, Bennet’s campaign as he filed his primary ballot petition that he wouldn’t also seek a spot on the ballot through the caucus and assembly process. His rival, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, is relying on next week’s state assembly in Pueblo to make the primary ballot.
State Sen. Julie Gonzales has launched a progressive Senate primary campaign against Hickenlooper, who dropped out of the assembly process last week after initially participating. Hickenlooper’s campaign noted that he didn’t complete the assembly process during his first Senate campaign in 2020 and that he’s already submitted petitions for his place on the primary ballot.
In an interview, Gonzales countered that the senator was “scared of the base.”
Some left-wing-versus-moderate fights are set for state legislative races, too. In the Colorado attorney general’s race, two newcomer candidates, David Seligman and Hetal Doshi, are challenging Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty for the Democratic nomination.
In a news release Tuesday morning, Seligman’s campaign said he led Griswold by 2 percentage points in a straw poll of Democratic assembly delegates statewide.
Teske and Masket underscored that success in the Democrats’ assembly process, which often draws more progressive or active party members, does not necessarily translate to a high likelihood of victory in the June primaries.
Kiros’ campaign and organizing helped turn out motivated and informed delegates and supporters Saturday, and they seemed to catch DeGette flat-footed. But the June contest will feature tens of thousands of voters, including many who are unaffiliated, and will require campaign organizing on a vastly different scale.
It will also require money. DeGette had more than $535,000 on hand as of Dec. 31, compared to Kiros’ $64,000. After 30 years in office, which has included DeGette sweeping aside the occasional primary challenge, she can also boast strong name recognition.
“I was surprised,” Teske said of Saturday’s results. “I think Melat’s campaign organized well, got a lot of people out, got young people excited. … Whether it builds any momentum or changes anything is hard to say, because itap still hard to beat an incumbent.”
The New York Times contributed to this story.
