Melat Kiros put in the work, built a coalition, dominated the caucus system and Tuesday night in the Democratic primary easily defeated U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, who has served 30 years in Congress.
The “how” is simple — Kiros ran an incredible grassroots campaign while DeGette was nearly absent from the campaign trail. Even after losing badly to Kiros at the Democratic County Assembly, DeGette and her supporters waited until the last minute to pour a million dollars into the campaign.
Kiros, who defeated DeGette by almost 10 points, faces a Republican candidate in November who is unlikely to win in Denver, where Democrats and unaffiliated voters account for a vast majority of registered voters.
The important question now is what the next two years look like for a political newcomer who has made ending Israel a cornerstone of her campaign, despite pleas from Colorado’s Jewish community for Kiros to bring more nuance to her position.
“When I wrote a letter defending students’ rights to protest the genocide in Gaza, my law firm told me, ‘take it down or you’re fired,'” Kiros told a crowd of supporters Tuesday night in a now familiar retelling of her path to politics. “I didn’t flinch because I stood by every word, and I always will, but I know that will not be the only moment where those in power will tell me to change my tune, to not rock the boat. That seems to happen a lot in Congress, but here in Denver, we stand by our values, and we stand with our community.”
We are not in any position to tell Kiros that she should now change her position on Israel as she enters Congress, nor do we want her to stop talking about the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
What we do ask from Kiros is that she be intellectually honest about her position on ending Israel and about the “letter” she wrote.
Kiros’ 2,000-word essay that was predominantly about “the elimination of Israel,” and not a single word was about the student protests. She made the case that Israel, as a nation, must cease to exist because of the historic oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank, the forced removal of Palestinians from Israel, and the then-months old indiscriminate bombing campaign in Gaza that had killed 10,000 people. She rightly predicted that Gaza was vulnerable to genocide. Today, the Gaza Health Ministry estimates 73,000 Palestinians have been killed and 173,000 injured. The bombings and shootings continue despite a ceasefire agreement that resulted in the release of hostages from the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“Perhaps it is naive to believe that the people in Palestine and Israel might one day live together as neighbors, in peace, without fear of persecution, under a new government, but it is not hopeless, and, most importantly, it is not anti-Semitic,” Kiros concluded her essay.
Kiros is anything but naïve. She is whip-smart and intimately familiar with the geopolitical and social conditions in the Middle East. She is not calling for the mastermind of this genocide, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to be ousted from power. She is not calling for an end to Hamas’ reign of terror over Palestinians and against Israelis. In fact, we have yet to hear her say the words “Hamas must go too if there is to be peace in historic Palestine.”
The Denverites she represents deserve to know that while in Congress, that is the position Kiros will be advocating for — an end to the state of Israel. Between now and the November election, Kiros has the opportunity to deepen and broaden her support in Denver by addressing the concern that she will use her vote in Congress to deny military aid to Israel without a plan for what happens when that country can no longer defend itself from people who are definitely antisemetic.
We don’t want to rain on Kiros’ parade. She won a historic primary election that echoes Rep. Pat Schroeder’s victory over a Republican incumbent in this very district in 1972.
Kiros’ upset victory Tuesday night reminds us of Schroeder’s win in two key ways: an anti-war push has dominated the conversation (Vietnam and Gaza), and the president in office (Nixon and Trump) is embroiled in an ongoing corruption scandal. Schroeder was swept into office as the first woman to represent Colorado in Congress. Kiros, an immigrant from Ethiopia, will be the first person of color to represent Congressional District 1 if she wins in November.
The Kiros campaign was decidedly anti-Washington, anti-establishment, and, yes, anti-Israel. She is not yet 30 years old, and she is a talented politician and public speaker. She inspired thousands of voters and is part of a movement across the nation of democratic socialists being swept into power.
“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 politics of the past, to get big money out of our politics, and to reject corporate PACs and AIPAC,” Kiros said during her election night victory speech. “And, no, we will not wait to end the genocide in Palestine.”
Good. We want Kiros to fight like hell for these things.
And if, while she is at it, Kiros finds it in her heart to consider the futures of approximately 7 million Jews who call Israel home, many of whom oppose Netanyahu’s government and oppose the terrorism of Zionist settlers in the West Bank, we know her support in Denver will only broaden when she faces re-election in two short years.
Schroeder went on to serve 24 years in Congress, and at the time, she was considered a radical candidate supporting reproductive freedom and fighting for equal rights for women. Kiros thanked DeGette on Tuesday night for helping to lead the fight for legal abortion and helping to build a culture in Denver where her family was welcomed from Ethiopia.
Now the question is how much further can Kiros carry Schroeder and DeGette’s mantle?
We think she will take it farther and faster if she builds a broader base of support than what has carried her past this primary.
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