Voters from both parties in the Republican’s 8th Congressional District overwhelmingly favor a lighter touch than the raids and mass roundups used in President Donald Trump’s second term, according to poll results released Wednesday by the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

Colorado’s 8th District, which takes in parts of Weld, Larimer and Adams counties north of Denver, has among the state’s eight congressional districts. Both Evans and his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, are Latino.

“There is tremendous common ground to build on to create legislative proposals (on immigration),” said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation, which conducted the poll. “There is an overarching sense that action must be taken.”

Still, bipartisan agreement on immigration reform has eluded Congress for years.

The survey, which Kull addressed for reporters on Wednesday in an online briefing, found voters on the right and left largely agree on a number of immigration-related questions both nationally and across more than two dozen battleground House districts. That’s true whether it’s about creating pathways to citizenship for people brought to the United States illegally as children or about requiring employers to verify a worker’s immigration status before hiring them.

The findings come from the latest release of a poll that included 500 voters in the 8th District in May and June. Earlier releases have addressed their views on several other issues, including the regulation of artificial intelligence and the government’s role in healthcare.

When it comes to immigration, Democrats are intent on pinning some of the uglier sides of enforcement under Trump to Republican incumbents in hopes of taking control of the closely divided House chamber in January. Rutinel has made criticism of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sometimes-harsh enforcement tactics a central theme of his campaign.

Evans has tried to create daylight between himself and the administration on the issue, highlighting his decision last year to join five other congressional Republicans in penning a letter to ICE leadership about its enforcement strategies, and asking whether the agency was prioritizing the deportation of criminals.

Erin Covey, the U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report, said getting out from under Trump’s shadow will be a tall order for Evans. The 8th District, she said, ranks second in the nation in Latino population for a battleground district currently led by a Republican.

Cook .

“I think Trump is an anchor on Evans in a way he isn’t on other Republicans in other competitive districts,” she said. “Latino voters are going to be a crucial part of either candidate’s fortunes.”

In Colorado’s 8th District, 66% of Republican or GOP-leaning voters and 87% of Democrats or those leaning left said they favored a long-term visa for immigrants who have been in the country for a while and who have committed no crime.

An even higher share of Republican voters and leaners — 77% — said children brought to the United States illegally as children should be provided a path to citizenship, provided they have not committed a significant crime and are employed, in college or serving in the military. Democrats and left-leaners registered an 88% approval of that question, according to the poll.

A dual question asked whether employers should be required to use E-Verify to ensure workers they hire are in the country legally and if more work visas should be issued, provided there’s a demand for workers. Both Democratice- and Republican-leaning voters responded overwhelmingly in the affirmative: 87% for Democrats and 85% for Republicans.

A majority of voters on both sides, according to the poll results, said more judges should be hired to adjudicate asylum cases. Sixty-six percent of Republicans were in favor while 83% of Democrats said yes.

The one question on which 8th District Republicans lined up nearly perfectly with the Trump administration was the need to deport those in the country illegally who had committed a crime. Ninety-eight percent of GOP-affiliated voters supported that policy, while 74% of Democrat-leaning respondents in the district did.

The University of Maryland survey came out just days after a Colorado Latino Policy Agenda poll revealed that 66% of Latino voters statewide said they felt the country was on the wrong track as their frustrations about the cost of living — which ranked higher than any other issue, including immigration — had gone unaddressed and, for many, had worsened.

For Evans, the dissatisfaction among Latino voters poses a potential hurdle to reelection. Only 34% of voting Latinos in his district regarded him favorably, while 42% viewed him unfavorably, according to that poll, which was conducted between July 1 and Aug. 11.

The survey of 500 voters found remarkable unanimity between voters leaning left or right on the question of AI regulations, with support for some types of oversight or regulation exceeding 80%. The findings come from a poll conducted in May and June by the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland through its , which shared the data with The Denver Post.

“Voters are intrigued by AI, but they have a lot of anxieties as well,” Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation, told The Post. “They agree it’s not enough for the tech companies themselves to regulate AI — they want the government to have a role.”

The goal of the program’s surveying is to identify solutions supported by voters to major public policy issues. It has conducted polls this year both nationally and in more than two dozen competitive U.S. House districts, including Colorado’s 8th, which covers a stretch of the Front Range from Commerce City to Greeley.

Artificial intelligence has in the last few years as the powerful technology has seeped into numerous facets of life, spurring fears of jobs lost to computer automation and the potential for algorithms, instead of human beings, to adjudicate critical healthcare claims and loan application decisions.

And money from tech companies with an interest in AI development has begun to shape and fuel the 8th District race, which pits Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans against the Democratic nominee, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, in November.

“Not only are Democrats and Republicans on the same side of this issue, but the majorities are large majorities,” Kull said of the public perception of AI borne out in the poll. “There’s substantial anxiety about it. Voters think this thing needs to be contained.”

Eighty percent of voters leaning Democrat and 84% of voters leaning Republican in the 8th District said they favored the creation of a new federal agency to oversee the burgeoning technology. Meanwhile, 80% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats in the district want new AI programs to pass a “government-designed test” before being implemented.

Most of the respondents in the 8th District poll were categorized as Democratic or Republican based on either their actual affiliation or, for unaffiliated voters, their lean toward one side or the other.

When it comes to “deepfakes” — video or images that are digitally altered or repurposed to deceive viewers — the poll showed little tolerance from 8th District voters. Eighty-nine percent of voters from both sides of the aisle said AI-generated content on TV or online should be required to carry a label identifying it as such.

The vast majority of voters — again, 89% among those leaning to either side — were even less tolerant of the use of deepfakes in the political arena, saying such content should be prohibited altogether in campaign ads.

“People have enough trouble figuring out what’s true as it is,” Kull said.

State lawmakers in 2024 passed a law requiring campaign ads that use AI to disclose that fact. When it comes to broader regulations on AI, the legislature has struggled to reach consensus. It passed a groundbreaking law two years ago that attempted to regulate the use of AI by companies and other organizations in ways that might discriminate against people, but the law was delayed as lawmakers, Gov. Jared Polis and outside interests debated changes.

In May, Polis signed a significant rewrite of the earlier law. At the national level, the Trump administration has threatened to challenge individual state regulations while calling for a national regulatory framework that hasn’t passed Congress.

The Program for Public Consultation poll also asked 8th District voters about the dystopian potential of machine-controlled weapons being deployed one day. That question prompted 80% of voters on the Democratic side and 84% on the Republican side to agree the United States should work with other countries on a treaty to “prohibit the development and use of AI-powered weapons that can fire on targets without a direct human command.”

A majority of district voters — 81% from each party’s leaners — also favored the U.S. signing an international treaty “to regulate large-scale AI programs.”

While the poll did not ask specifically about the recent explosion in data center development, Kull said the cloud computing facilities that have rattled communities with concerns about their environmental impacts — particularly water and electricity consumption — “have become somewhat of a symbol” of the larger AI issue.

Both Rutinel and Evans have weighed in on artificial intelligence and related issues.

Rutinel has sponsored bills in the state Capitol that would place guardrails around the technology, including that required a developer of a “high-risk artificial intelligence system” to use reasonable care to protect consumers from “algorithmic discrimination.” He also was among the sponsors of that rewrote those regulations.

Last month, Evans helped introduce a bill in Congress called the , which would ensure Americans “are not left footing the bill for the grid upgrades and increased energy generation required to develop new data centers.”

“I don’t see significant numbers of voters saying they don’t want anything to do with AI,” Kull said, “but they are looking for candidates who are responsive to public concerns about the downsides of AI.”

Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make Daylight Saving Time (DST) permanent across the country, ending the brutal biannual clock change.

The vote wasn’t close, 308 ayes to 117 nays, and was more bipartisan than most. States like Arizona and Hawaii that observe year-long Standard Time would not be impacted, while states that want year-round DST will have that option. Under current law, passed in 1966, states can opt out of DST but not opt in for the full year. If the Sunshine Protection Act is signed into law, Colorado and another 18 states that have previously voted to “lock the clock” will switch to DST.

Lawmakers are responding not just to biannual grousing by irritable constituents and columnists but to the growing body of studies demonstrating a link between clock changing and adverse health and safety outcomes.

For example, according to a 2014 University of Colorado study, switching the time twice a year was correlated with more than 300 deaths over a decade from auto accidents, heart attacks and stress. An earlier 2012 University of Alabama at Birmingham study showed a 10% increase in heart attacks on the Monday and Tuesday after spring-forward.  The risk of stroke was shown to be 8% higher during those days, and even higher among cancer patients and people over the age of 65, Finnish research found.

Spring-forward can also trigger migraines and cluster headaches in those who suffer from those conditions, says Cleveland Clinic’s Emad Estemalik. Altogether, the social cost of spring-forward amounts to $275 million annually, observed a study published in the American Economics Journal.

It����ap no wonder a 2025 poll found most Americans want the clock swap to end, with 56% of Americans preferring all-year DST and 42% wanting permanent Standard Time. It����ap likely all 42% in that poll are “morning people” who want not only to foist their unnatural sunny morning demeanor on us all but the physical sun rays as well. They are joined by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, who believe Standard Time better aligns with the human circadian system, which requires morning light and evening darkness to optimize. Curiously, 12% of Americans polled want to keep the biannual time change.

Given the sane public’s desire to end the clock change, why is the Senate balking? Back in 2022, the chamber passed a similar bill by unanimous consent, yet this year a group of bipartisan senators is opposing the legislation.

They worry that the late rising sun will negatively impact children walking to school in the dark. If DST became the standard, the longest winter night in Denver would not end until 8:21 am but in areas of Montana and Michigan, the sun would not rise until 9:30 a.m. The senators note that when DST was implemented temporarily in 1974, parents and morning commuters complained about the darkness, and Congress repealed the measure within a year.

Times have changed, however, and fewer children walk to school than we did back in the 1970s, uphill both ways, barefoot in the blizzarding snow. Also, more schools have adopted later school start times to accommodate the sleep needs of adolescents. Given the ubiquity of street lights, parent drivers, and later start times, the public could accommodate the costs of permanent DST while enjoying sunlight after work.

Alternatively, the Senate could approve permanent Standard Time and send the bill over to the House for debate. Doing nothing shouldn’t be an option. While that might please the 12% of madcap happy clock switchers, the rest of us will remain dissatisfied until Congress finds the will to act.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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And four months out from the November election, Laubacher, a Democrat, held an eye-popping cash advantage over Colorado’s most well-known member of Congress: $3.6 million to $247,000. That’s according to new federal campaign finance reports filed by their campaigns Wednesday night.

But all that money, which accounts for contributions to and expenditures from each’s campaign coffers as of June 30, may add up to a whole lot of nothing in a district as red as the 4th.

Political observers advise against reading too much into Boebert’s fundraising numbers, which are anemic compared to the state’s other Republican incumbents and to her past races. Two years ago at this time, when Boebert, now 39, was running in the 4th District for the first time, she in the bank after fending off several GOP primary challengers.

In 2022, when she was running for a second term in the more competitive 3rd Congressional District on the Western Slope — before she switched to the 4th — Boebert had in cash on hand entering July, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State University, pointed to the nonpartisan , which gives Republicans a massive 9-percentage-point advantage in the 4th District, which covers the state’s Eastern Plains and butts up against the Front Range, taking in Douglas County. Cook rates it solidly Republican this year.

“History shows money alone rarely overcomes a 9-point partisan lean in a midterm or general (election) without a perfect storm, like a national wave, a major scandal or a candidate collapse,” he said. “I’d rate the odds of a flip as quite low — Boebert starts as a strong favorite, barring major shifts.”

Political analyst Floyd Ciruli also cautioned that cash alone may not be able to overcome the reality of the district’s political makeup. Republicans have 100,000-plus more registered voters than Democrats.

“I’m not sure that money is the actual issue in this district,” Ciruli said.

But that doesn’t mean a change at the top can’t happen in Colorado’s sprawling eastern district —  because it has. Betsy Markey represented the district for a single term nearly 20 years ago — the only time a Democrat has won the seat in decades.

A ‘lack of enthusiasm’ for Boebert?

The that Laubacher, 57, has reeled in compared to Boebert’s this election cycle is a substantial spread.

Trying to divine why that fundraising discrepancy exists is tricky, Saunders said, though Laubacher’s haul has benefited from extensive online fundraising appeals asking for help taking on the conservative lightning rod. All that money will expand the opportunities to get her messages in front of voters, including through ads on TV and social media.

She ended up unopposed in the Democratic primary after Trisha Calvarese — who lost to Boebert by 11.6 percentage points in the 2024 race — dropped her repeat bid in late March. Boebert was unopposed in the June 30 primary.

“It may reflect some national GOP donor hesitation tied to her controversies, but in practice, it hasn’t hurt her electorally here,” Saunders said of Boebert, referring to unflattering headlines the congresswoman has generated over the years. “Lack of enthusiasm is possible among moderates, but the district’s partisan composition limits its impact.”

Boebert’s thinner campaign purse can also be explained in more innocuous ways, he said.

“Incumbents in safe seats often don’t need to max out (with each donor); they can rely on name recognition, partisan advantage in the electorate and party infrastructure,” Saunders said.

A spokesman for Boebert’s campaign didn’t respond Thursday to questions sent by The Denver Post.

In other federal races that could prove more competitive, this week’s FEC filings show differing relative money positions.

Fundraising in the El Paso County-based 5th Congressional District has favored Democrat Jessica Killin, who has collected nearly twice as much money as first-term Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank in this cycle. The former U.S. Army captain, who won the Democratic primary, had as of June 30 compared to Crank’s . While the district has long been a Republican stronghold, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added the 5th to its list of targeted seats in February.

In the 3rd District, Boebert’s successor, Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, reported nearly $1.8 million in his account entering July compared to Democratic nominee Dwayne Romero’s $84,200 after Romero won a hard-fought primary.

In Colorado’s most competitive congressional district, U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a Republican, had more than six times the cash on hand as his Democratic opponent, Manny Rutinel, as of the end of June. Rutinel had to to spend through November in the race for the 8th Congressional District, which includes northern Denver suburbs and Greeley. But Rutinel had to fend off two Democratic opponents in a very expensive primary.

In Colorado’s U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democrat John Hickenlooper was crushing his Republican opponent, state Sen. Mark Baisley, in the fundraising game despite facing his own primary opponent. Colorado’s junior senator had in his bank account on June 30, compared to for Baisley, who was unopposed in the GOP primary.

In all, Hickenlooper has raised nearly $8.9 million in this election cycle to Baisley’s nearly $105,000. The Cook Political Report rates the Senate race as “solid Democrat.”

Laubacher’s strategy

In the 4th District, Taylor Gillespie, the campaign manager for Laubacher, said raising money was “only one part of building a winning campaign.”

Laubacher, she said, “has spent her entire career putting her life on the line for our country and is running to put a stop to the self-dealing in Washington by putting in place term limits and age limits, banning insider stock trading by politicians and putting a stop to reckless, out-of-control debt.”

Laubacher can pound themes on the campaign trail that are particularly salient to the largely agricultural district, Ciruli said, like high fuel and fertilizer prices in the midst of the U.S. war with Iran and added costs for farmers due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“You have to convince the farmer in Sterling or in Fort Morgan that they’re not getting enough representation and they need to move to a Democrat,” he said.

Saunders said Laubacher would have to execute a “flawless ground game” and target unaffiliated and “soft GOP voters in suburban growth areas” (like Douglas County), “emphasizing her service, moderation and putting people over politics.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s unpopularity in the country on the November ballot. Boebert has created some distance between herself and the president in recent months, criticizing Trump for his veto of a water project that would benefit her district and calling on his administration to release files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

But Saunders said Boebert can stray only so far from the White House.

“In a safe district of any partisan flavor, loyalty signals often matter more than policy nuance,” he said. “So, her survival will likely rest on keeping the base fired up without alienating enough suburban and independent voters.”

Shimon Blau, a pain management physician and Israel supporter, on Thursday turned in signatures required to get on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate — and he did so just an hour before the deadline after a rush to collect signatures this week.

“Dr. Blau turned in petitions at 4 p.m.,” Colorado Secretary of State’s Office spokesman Jack Todd said Thursday. “I cannot speak to how many signatures Dr. Blau turned in, or whether his petition submission will ultimately be deemed sufficient or insufficient.”

Blau must submit 1,500 valid voter signatures from the 1st Congressional District, which for the most part covers Denver, to make the November ballot. Election officials have until July 30 to review petitions for unaffiliated candidates, Todd said.

Kiros, who defeated the 15-term DeGette in the June 30 primary, also faces Republican Christy Peterson, who according to Federal Election Commission records had raised no money for the race through the end of March. She didn’t file a more recent campaign finance report.

Blau, who is Jewish, launched his long-shot congressional bid on Sunday, that he was “saddened and alarmed” by Kiros’ victory a few days earlier.

Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist, has been criticized for comments she made about 9/11, Israel’s legitimacy as a nation, and the deadly firebombing attack on Jews and others demonstrating in Boulder last year — an act she refused to call antisemitic.

“I am particularly concerned by what I view as Ms. Kiros’s anti-Semitic rhetoric and her refusal to meet with leaders of Denver’s Jewish community to address their concerns,” Blau wrote in his launch announcement.

Both Blau and Peterson may face a tough time trying to beat Kiros this fall, given Denver’s heavily Democratic skew.

For now, knock Colorado out of the nationwide partisan redistricting wars kicked off by President Donald Trump as Republican- and Democratic-led states have jockeyed for an advantage by adopting new congressional maps.

The state Supreme Court concluded that the ballot measures, which would’ve temporary re-drawn maps for the 2028 and 2030 elections, violated the state’s requirement that ballot proposals encompass only a single subject. Three of the rejected ballot measures were backed by Democrats seeking to grow their congressional power in the state, while two more were backed by conservatives with similar aims for Republican candidates.

“Changing long-settled law by modifying the timing, frequency, criteria, and entity responsible for congressional redistricting represents a significant change beyond the proponents’ stated central purposes (of) … congressional redistricting by adopting a new temporary map,” Chief Justice Monica Márquez wrote in one of the opinions.

The single-subject requirement is intended to prevent voter confusion and “log-rolling,” meaning when a voter supports one part of a complex ballot initiative but not another.

In two opinions, the justices wrote that the various measures raised log-rolling concerns because they generally would’ve changed how maps are drawn while also instituting new maps in 2028 and 2030, in ways favorable to either Democrats or Republicans. The justices argued that a voter might want to change how districts are drawn overall but may not support the partisan map proposals in the upcoming elections, or vice versa.

In her opinion rejecting two of the ballot measures, Márquez wrote that each proposal “represents a seismic shift to Colorado’s longstanding redistricting process enshrined in the state constitution.” The other opinion was authored by Justice Richard L. Gabriel.

The rulings were welcomed by conservative groups, while the campaign that filed the Democratic ballot measures called the outcome “a legal setback over a technicality.”

Democrats here had initially sought to redraw the state’s maps ahead of the 2028 election — the soonest new boundaries could take effect here — which prompted retaliatory proposals from Republicans. But given Colorado’s distinctly Democratic voter base, the liberal push was likely to find more fertile ground, had one of the Democrats’ measures reached the ballot box.

Democrats and Republicans currently have a 4-4 split in representation in Colorado’s U.S. House districts, with one of those considered a swing district. Colorado’s congressional and state legislative districts are drawn by independent redistricting commissions, which were created through separate ballot measures and first produced maps in 2022, after the 2020 census.

The rulings bring, at least for now, a sputtering end to one front in the broader redistricting wars, which started with a GOP-friendly rewrite in Texas and has led several other states to overhaul their congressional maps in the past year.

Colorado’s role in that conflict was always more subordinate: Under the proposals rejected Monday, new maps would’ve been temporary and would not have played a part in the coming November election.

Still, had it succeeded, the redistricting push in Colorado would’ve allowed Democrats to pick up as many as three seats and expand national Democrats’ ability to respond to GOP gerrymandering elsewhere.

Instead, in the absence of new ballot measures, the current congressional boundaries will be in effect until the commission undertakes the next regular round of redistricting, after the 2030 census.

The court’s decisions, then, represent a win for conservatives in Colorado, who had sought to protect both the state’s independent redistricting process and the Republican-leaning congressional seats that would’ve been imperiled by Democrat-friendly revisions.

In a statement, the campaign backing the Democratic proposals, Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, said the justices “thwarted” Colorado’s effort to push back against President Donald Trump.

“The success of this partisan attempt to sideline Coloradans from responding to Donald Trump’s unprecedented mid-decade redistricting scheme is disappointing,” said Curtis Hubbard, a spokesman for the campaign. “While Trump and his MAGA allies regularly sidestep the law and ignore voters, efforts to respond have once again been dealt a legal setback over a technicality.”

Shad Murib, spokesman for the Colorado Democratic Party, said in a statement that the ruling was “a loss for America but a win for Republicans backing Donald Trump’s efforts to rig congressional elections.” He said the court had “denied voters the chance to have their say” and had “emboldened MAGA politicians in other states.”

Republicans, meanwhile, declared victory.

Michael Fields, the president of the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado, said the court had “accurately decided that political games cannot be played with Colorado’s Congressional maps.”

“The court����ap decision is a win for fairness and a blow to the Democrats’ national attempts to take away the voice of citizens who want to choose their own representation,” Fields wrote.

Advance Colorado still has an out for signature collection that would block 2028 redistricting. If passed in November, the proposed constitutional amendment would need to be repealed if Democrats in the future wanted to create new maps early, Fields said. He said Advance was still “likely” to run that proposal.

Scott Gessler, a former secretary of state whose law firm filed the Republican measures, wrote that the court “soundly rejected the Democratic efforts to manipulate the ballot process to overturn Colorado’s nonpartisan redistricting process.”

Three of at issue in Monday’s rulings were tangled together. Two of them, Initiatives 241 and 242, would’ve replaced the existing redistricting process and implemented new, temporary maps for 2028 and 2030, respectively.

Each would have taken effect only if the other passed. Republicans, in response, filed Initiative 328. It, too, would’ve passed only had Initiative 241 been approved. The measure would’ve also implemented new maps, albeit not the Democratic-friendly ones proposed by 242.

Coloradans for a Level Playing Field had already raised $2.3 million and had spent more than $2 million of it, in large part to gather signatures for the ballot. Much of that money came from the Fairness Project, which has backed liberal ballot measures elsewhere, and American Opportunity Action, a relatively new, Democrat-aligned dark-money outfit.

The campaign also received $150,000 from a political action committee tied to the Democratic caucus in the U.S. House.

Re: “As Lake Powell’s levels recede, life reemerges,” June 7 news story

Congress should demand that the Bureau of Reclamation accelerate its efforts to modify Glen Canyon Dam to allow more water to flow from Lake Powell to Lake Mead. Doing so would enhance water security for the millions of people and vast agricultural regions in Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico that rely on water from Lake Mead. It would protect hydropower production at Hoover Dam, which has about 60% more generating capacity than Glen Canyon Dam. It would also support the ongoing ecological restoration now flourishing in Glen Canyon.

Lake Mead is less than 30% full and can accommodate more than three times the water currently stored in Lake Powell.

According to the Bureau’s of Colorado River conditions, Lake Powell will drop below 3,500 feet throughout the entire first quarter of 2027. At that elevation, hydroelectric generation at Glen Canyon Dam will be severely curtailed, despite unprecedented actions to prop up the reservoir.

The same forecast projects that Lake Mead will fall to a level at which, for nearly a year, the cost to operate and maintain Hoover Dam will exceed revenues from hydroelectric sales.

The Bureau has been studying potential modifications to Glen Canyon Dam for years, but does not expect to complete even its “appraisal study” until the end of 2026.

Congress should appropriate funds immediately and direct the Bureau to develop the plans and engineering designs required to construct major modifications to Glen Canyon Dam — changes that would ensure significantly more water can be delivered downstream to Lake Mead.

Ronald L. Rudolph, Golden

Dems should ‘close ranks’ around Platner

Re: “Democrats cannot ignore Platner’s many red flags and hold the moral high ground,” June 7 commentary

Moral high ground? Elections are not about morals. They are about power — who gains power, how they are exercising power and accountability for that power.

Elections are not dating events. Voters do not choose a mate. A pure heart, an unimpeachable background, perfect manners and a dental plan do not matter. Graham Platner is not running to be Maine’s sweetheart. He is running for one of its Senate seats.

Platner is Maine’s Democratic Senate candidate. There is no other. It is him against Republican Susan Collins, who talks centrist and votes extremist. He is the Democratic candidate because he, as columnist Doug Friednash laments, “…has been leading in the polls and offers the party a chance to beat Susan Collins.” Democracy in action.

For the sake of us, the people, our country and the planet, Democrats must now regain power. Only with power can they combat the corruption and the chaos, legislate for the people, and reverse the prevailing “….pattern of offensive and vulgar conduct” that Mr. Friednash sanctimoniously and wrongfully attributes to Platner, and which the current regime inflicts on us, the people, every day, all day long.

A covered-up Totenkopf tattoo? Cute, considering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s uncovered vile white supremacist tattoos and corresponding vile, white supremacist activities. Foul language? Who cares in light of President Trump and Co.’s incessant sewage tweets? Impure manners towards women who are not his wife? He is not commanding them to “be quiet, piggy” or bragging about grabbing their nether regions without consent.

Those who want Dems to gain power must close ranks behind Dem candidates, not sabotage them with irrelevant purity tests.

Floy Jeffares, Lakewood

Hetal Doshi for Attorney General

Re: “Vote Michael Dougherty for Colorado attorney general in the Democratic primary,” June 7 editorial

I am challenging the Denver Post����ap endorsement of Michael Dougherty for Colorado’s attorney general. The reasons given for the endorsement focused on his local experience. While admirable, it is my opinion that Hetal Doshi has more credible state and federal experience.

Doshi has already managed a staff of over 800 and will hit the ground running. She has well-established relationships with attorneys general throughout the country. She has taken on and won huge antitrust cases.

Both Dougherty and David Seligman will strive to do well by Colorado. That said, Doshi’s depth and breadth of experience, along with her bipartisanship, professionalism and temperament, make her the strongest candidate. We need Hetal Doshi’s leadership at this critical period.

Alice Applebaum, Denver

DeGette should remain in the U.S. House

Re: “DeGette has served 15 terms, but has she been effective?” May 31 news story

Yes! Rep. Diana DeGette is effective.

As a resident of Colorado House District 1, I’m affected by the leadership of our district. For years, I’ve supported Rep. DeGette, and I continue to do so. Not because she and I are both getting along in years (that would be blatant agism, much like candidate Melat Kiros is doing in her campaign materials), but because she’s been an excellent representative.

Experience must count for something, and that����ap what I see lacking in Kiros’ materials. I see no experience with the political process; I see no grassroots work in the community; I see no elected or appointed political positions, not even in high school or college. How do we know she’ll work effectively?

It doesn’t matter how often she claims she’ll work for universal Medicare. If she doesn’t know how to function as an elected official, she’ll be ineffective. Rep DeGette’s office has always responded to inquiries, has always communicated with her constituents, and has always been informed about the details and possible repercussions of political doings.

Bonnie McCune, Denver

Hickenlooper should remain in U.S. Senate

Re: “Is Hickenlooper the one to fight Trump, or should voters give Gonzales a chance?” June 10 editorial

The Denver Post passed the buck by not endorsing either U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper or state Sen. Julie Gonzales. Call me old-fashioned but I believe Hickenlooper’s approach to statesmanship is what is needed.

Gonzales is apparently qualified and has demonstrated a zeal for change; however, I am troubled when persons aspiring to political office make claims that are unrealistic and, quite frankly, not possible in the current situation. Elimination of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not feasible. There is much I find unconscionable about ICE, but it needs to be reformed, not eliminated.

Hickenlooper has demonstrated an aptitude for accomplishment, quiet, unheralded, and consistent. As mayor of Denver, governor of Colorado and senator, he has been businesslike, steady and knowledgeable.

Gonzales alleges some financial impropriety on Hickenlooper’s part, but The Post rightfully points out that he has been judicious about placing his finances in a “blind trust,” encouraging other senators to do the same. Gonzales says that she wants Medicare for all and will abolish private health insurance. I am sorry, but this demonstrates a naivete and lack of certainty in what this means in terms of costs and practicality.

No one doubts that Trump has to be curtailed, but remember, no one senator can effect change individually; it must be done by consensus and compromise.

Philip Arreola, Denver

Editor’s note: The policy of The Denver Post and its sister papers in Tribune and Media News Group is not to endorse in U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races.

Let Russell Wilson have his broadcasting shot

Re: “Wilson’s a Hall-of-Famer, but he’ll be brutal,” June 7 sports commentary

Sean Keeler has decided to carry on the nasty comments on Russell Wilson into a brand new TV job for him before he even has his first try at it. Okay, let’s remind Keeler to give people a chance. I’m sure people have done that for him and haven’t trashed him before he even started his reporting career. Back off!

Dea Coschignano, Wheat Ridge

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“Where do you stand in regard to ICE?” the woman asked, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Rutinel, who was pressing the flesh on a hot, sunny afternoon in Thornton’s Carpenter Park, was more than ready with an answer. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and crackdown on people living in the country illegally have provided reliable talking points for the 31-year-old state representative from Commerce City.

“They’re terrorizing Latino immigrants,” Rutinel, whose mother immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic, told the couple. “It’s personal for me.”

Nearly 24 hours earlier and about seven miles away, Shannon Bird — the other Democrat running in the 8th Congressional District — was going door to door in the Sherrelwood neighborhood in Adams County. The former state representative carried a stack of campaign flyers emblazoned with the words: “Fight Trump. Stop ICE.”

Bird, 57, and Rutinel are facing off in the Democratic primary on June 30. They’re each hoping to go to battle this November with Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans to represent the 8th District, which largely covers suburbs and farm fields across parts of three counties north of Denver.

The race revolves around the familiar issues Democrats have been bringing up since Trump regained the White House last year: immigration, the cost of living and the environment. But Bird and Rutinel, separated in age by 26 years, say they bring their own skill sets and perspectives to a district that has landed in the national spotlight.

“This is where you find out where people are at — what they’re all about,” said Bird, as a campaign aide used a smartphone to shoot footage of her walking along Douglas Drive. “I know the community — I have an authentic connection to the people in this community. To win, people have to know you care about them.”

Several people who opened their doors on that hot Friday afternoon pledged their vote to Bird, including 80-year-old Patricia Hall, who has lived in her Albert Court house since 1972.

For Hall, it comes down to Bird’s longevity in the district — a quarter-century of volunteering for Adams 12 Five Star Schools and serving on the Westminster City Council and at the state Capitol for the better part of two terms.

Rutinel has lived in Commerce City for four years, though he spent several additional months in the city in 2020, according to his campaign. Bird has lived in Westminster for 25 years.

“She’s been out talking to the people,” said Hall, who worried about Colorado’s experience deficit in the nation’s capital should U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet be elected Colorado governor this fall. “We gotta get some of the experience back in Washington.”

While the candidates are putting their feet to the ground to talk to voters, the much bigger outreach effort is happening on television and online. Between fundraising by both campaigns and a gush of spending by outside groups, the 8th Congressional District primary has turned into an expensive affair.

Bird and Rutinel together have raised more than $5 million, and outside groups have reported independent spending totaling nearly $5.8 million in the primary.

“The 8th District is still the race to watch,” said Robert Preuhs, a political science professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

The district, Colorado’s newest, covers Denver’s northern suburbs and the agricultural land and oil fields stretching to Greeley. It could play a crucial role in determining control of a closely divided Congress in 2027, given its — a dynamic that has sent representatives from both major parties to Washington in less than four years.

Until recently, the Democratic primary was a three-person contest. But in late May, former Marine Evan Munsing called it quits. He did not immediately endorse anyone in the race.

With an animated — and often angry — Democratic voting base in this election cycle, Preuhs said such angst could play in favor of a relative newcomer to the district, like Rutinel, who has tried to push a more left-leaning message on the trail.

“Voters are really looking for something different,” the professor said. “They’re seeking that candidate that can push back on ICE. I think he has a natural tie and attraction to Latinos in the district.”

The Latino factor and big outside money

The 8th District is Colorado’s most heavily Latino, with , according to data from the 2021 Colorado redistricting effort. The Hispanic vote was thought to be a critical part of former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo’s victory in 2022 over state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, according to an exit poll conducted during the election.

In late April, the Latino Victory Project pledged a on behalf of Rutinel, who it said “will protect our communities from MAGA’s extremist policies,” referring to Trump’s coalition. The progressive advocacy group spends in support of Latino candidates.

Since then, the group — and its political action committee, the Latino Victory Fund — have ramped up their spending, reporting nearly $1.9 million in independent expenditures in support of Rutinel or opposing Bird, . Another Latino-supporting group, SOMOS PAC, has reported spending nearly $898,000 to help Rutinel.

Those amounts are part of nearly $4.1 million spent by outside groups on ads, mailers and other activities in support of Rutinel or opposing Bird as of Friday. That sum includes $949,000 spent by You Can Push Back, a super PAC that lauds Rutinel’s sponsorship of Colorado artificial intelligence regulations.

Less outside money — $1.7 million, according to FEC filings — has been spent to help Bird, either in support of her or opposing Rutinel. About $1.3 million of that has come from Women Vote, a super PAC associated with Emily’s List, which supports women running for office.

In direct contributions, Rutinel holds a distinct money advantage over Bird, having raised nearly twice as much as she has — Just over two weeks from the primary election, their ads — and those bought by outside groups — have become fixtures on metro Denver TV screens.

Yazmin Torres, who owns the Neveria La Unica food truck, says she connects with Rutinel, a fluent Spanish speaker raised by a single mother. The candidate paid her a visit at Thorntonfest last weekend and she thanked him for his work on a 2025 bill that .

As a single mom herself, Torres said she felt a kinship with Rutinel. She also wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. Rutinel earned his law degree from Yale University.

“My dream is to go to law school, so he’s an inspiration to do that,” she said. “It’s nice to have someone to represent us.”

But securing the Latino vote in the district is no guarantee of victory. In 2024, the showed a strong preference among Latino voters for Caraveo over Evans — by more than 20% — but Evans, who is also Latino, prevailed in that contest.

Bird, an attorney before getting into politics, has her own story of growing up with a single mother. She often recounts that her family stayed afloat by relying on tips from her grandmother’s casino dealer job in Reno, Nevada. Those are the kinds of economic struggles she hears from potential constituents while knocking on doors.

“The high cost of living — and now with the Iran war — the cost of gas,” Bird said. “And those energy costs spread throughout the economy.”

Her opponent’s decision to support a state budget this year that included cuts to Medicaid has become one of Bird’s campaign attack lines. At a late May candidate forum in Greeley, she told Rutinel and the audience that she would “absolutely not have voted to cut Medicaid.”

“He should have fought to use the rainy day fund to hold off the worst of these cuts,” Bird said in an interview with The Denver Post. “Both Gabe Evans and Manny Rutinel believe that cutting Medicaid is a way to pass a budget.”

Rutinel dismisses Bird’s allegations, saying he tried to save Medicaid funds in the Colorado budget but was unable to marshal the support amongst his colleagues to do so.

“I did the work to bring amendments to dip into the reserves further,” he said.

Rutinel said he grew up on Medicaid, so he knows its importance firsthand.

“Saving Medicaid is personal for me,” he said.

In turn, Rutinel regularly critiques Bird’s vote against a 2025 bill in the state House that aimed to further curtail federal immigration authorities’ access to public spaces in Colorado, from government buildings to libraries to public schools. He said he is “severely disappointed that Shannon Bird was the only House Democrat to vote against it.”

“She’s trying to pull a fast one,” Rutinel told folks hiding from the sun at the covered Brighton Writers Group booth at Thorntonfest. “We need to be fighting for the people who are struggling.”

Voters in the 8th District, he said, may have wanted more oversight at the southern border than what former President Joe Biden provided, but they don’t want the chaotic — and sometimes violent — mass deportation agenda of this president.

“People tell me Donald Trump and Gabe Evans were going to go after the criminals — and they’re going after the grandmas,” he said. “People are telling me they feel lied to.”

Plenty of agreement

Bird calls Rutinel’s accusation on the ICE bill apocryphal. She said her “no” vote on Senate Bill 276 happened during a committee hearing on the bill, which she said needed improvement before going to a floor vote in the House.

Bird said she regrets being absent the day the bill came up for a floor vote in the House a few weeks later — a missed vote she blames on a family medical emergency.

“It was one of the few votes I missed, and I regret that,” Bird told The Post earlier this year.

Rutinel, she said, has been using that bill to mischaracterize her position on ICE and Trump’s immigration policy. She says she has the only , with requirements for body-worn cameras and officers who are better vetted and trained.

“I think Manny has a record he can’t defend,” she said.

Immigration will prove an important issue in the 8th Congressional District, said Preuhs, the political science professor. Though ICE’s footprint in Colorado has been lighter than in other American cities, the issue is never far from a district with so many Latinos.

“You have a Democratic voting constituency that is adamantly against Trump and they’re looking for a strong advocate for their position,” Preuhs said.

But if the forum in Greeley last month showed anything, it’s that the two Democrats running for the nomination agree on much — including opposition to a federal ban on hydraulic fracturing to extract oil, support for a ban on oil and gas leases on federal land, and support for a boost in the federal minimum wage.

In recent weeks, Rutinel has been on the defensive after  that he had reversed or softened past positions in support of a fracking ban, cancellation of student debt and a single-payer healthcare system. His campaign pushed back on some of the outlet’s characterizations.

The 8th Congressional District partially lies in Weld County, which is Colorado’s most prolific producer of oil and gas. Agriculture is also a big presence in the district, and both Bird and Rutinel have slammed Trump’s tariffs, many of which were overturned in February by the Supreme Court, as unfriendly to farmers.

“Congress needs to pass legislation to make it clear who has the power to tariff,” Bird told The Post.

Rutinel, who was an economist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before getting into politics, was equally tough on the body he is vying to join when it comes to preserving its power of the purse.

“If we had a willingness from Congress to pull back these corrupt and chaotic tariff policies, we could bring down prices,” he said. “It’s putting so many of the family farms and ranchers at risk.”

Manny Rutinel, a state representative from Commerce City, deployed an attack line that he has been using for months on the campaign trail — that his opponent, former state Rep. Shannon Bird, voted against a 2025 bill that would have further curtailed immigration authorities’ access to government buildings, libraries and public schools in Colorado.

“I can’t tell you how much that hurt me and my family,” said the 31-year-old Rutinel, whose mother immigrated to the United States. “We need leaders who will stand up to Donald Trump.”

Bird, 57, said her opponent repeatedly has mischaracterized her vote, saying it happened during a committee hearing on the bill, which she said needed improvement before advancing to the full House. She fired back at Rutinel for his vote this session to pass the state budget, which included cuts to Medicaid to address a gigantic shortfall.

“I would absolutely not have voted to cut Medicaid,” she said.

Thursday’s event was organized and conducted by the Colorado Sun.

The candidates will square off on June 30 in the Democratic primary, with the winner going on to face Evans in November. Control of Congress is at stake in the midterms, with Republicans now holding a , with one independent and five vacancies.

Conspicuously absent from the stage in Greeley on Thursday was Evan Munsing, a Marine veteran who quit the race the day before, citing the stark financial advantages his two opponents hold.

Rutinel had outraised Munsing by nearly a factor of six, while Bird has brought in nearly three times the $600,000 or so Munsing had raised as of the end of March, according to the most recent campaign finance numbers posted with the .

Evans outguns them all, having raised nearly $4.3 million to Rutinel’s nearly $3.5 million at the end of March.

Bird and Rutinel also traded barbs on Bird’s decision to step down from the legislature in January to run for the 8th District, with Rutinel saying “she quit the legislature when her constituents needed her most.” Bird said she stepped down to put “150%” into her congressional campaign.

“I did not want a tax-funded salary while I was running,” she said.

The two candidates agreed on a number of things, including opposition to a federal ban on hydraulic fracturing to extract oil, support for a ban on oil and gas leases on federal land and support for a boost in the federal minimum wage.

The 8th Congressional District is home to many oil and gas operations.

On the subject of data centers, a hot topic, Bird and Rutinel said more guardrails are needed on the tech facilities, especially when it comes to their use of water and electric power. Bird said companies that build data centers have to account for their water use “so they are never competing with our limited water supply.”

Rutinel said data centers “should be using renewable energy as much as possible.”

Both candidates were in favor of exploring the idea of raising taxes on people making $400,000 to $500,000 a year to help pay for social programs. Bird said money being spent on the war in Iran, which she opposes, could be redirected to social programs in this country.

“We can afford so many programs, and don’t let the billionaires tell you otherwise,” Rutinel said.

The 8th Congressional District covers Greeley and a small chunk of Larimer County and then heads south into Adams County, taking in several suburban communities north of Denver, including Commerce City, Thornton and Northglenn. The district was created after the 2020 census revealed that population growth in Colorado merited adding an additional representative from the state to the congressional delegation in Washington.

It was deliberately drawn to be Colorado’s most politically competitive district, and in its first four years, it has had both a Democrat and a Republican in the seat. The Cook Political Report rates the 8th District as one of in the country this year.

Melat Kiros — who’s also a lawyer and a Ph.D student when she isn’t behind the counter at the Whittier Cafe — is picking up momentum in her first-ever political campaign. She’s running against longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District in Denver.

DeGette, who was sworn into office the year Kiros was born, has .

But Kiros, a Democratic socialist, rose to prominence after she demolished DeGette in the Democrats’ Denver County assembly last month. And while political observers, including Kiros herself, say the assembly process isn’t actually representative of who will vote in the June primary, the win still marked a surprising development in a race that many considered to be predetermined.

“This has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the fact that Denver Democrats want a fighter — somebody who is actually committed to transformative change,” Kiros said in an interview this week with The Denver Post.

Kiros didn’t keep DeGette off the ballot, but she gave her a scare. Kiros won 646 votes, or the support of 63% of those present at the county assembly. DeGette won 336, or 32% of the votes.

It was the first time DeGette had lost a county assembly vote since she initially won her seat in Congress in the 1996 election.

Two weeks after the county assembly, DeGette, 68, narrowly won her place on the primary ballot at the 1st Congressional District party assembly, receiving 33% support — just above the 30% threshold to make the ballot. A third primary candidate, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, , but her voter signatures are still under review by the state.

Denver-based state Rep. Javier Mabrey, who endorsed Kiros, said he saw her as part of a larger movement within the Democratic Party: voters who don’t want to see the same types of candidates elected.

Like New York City’s new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Kiros is a more progressive Democrat than those who currently make up the majority of the party’s members in Congress, he said.

“I think there’s an energy for politics that says, ‘Our problems are more complicated than Donald Trump alone. We’ve got to confront the conditions that led to Donald Trump,” Mabrey said of the Republican president. “I think Melat has tapped into that.”

Kiros will still have a long way to go if she hopes to pull off a win of the June 30 primary, however. The assembly gathered only a tiny sliver of the 416,000 people eligible to vote in the June Democratic primary — 230,000 unaffiliated voters and 186,000 registered Democrats, as of March 1, according to the secretary of state’s office.

A spokesperson for DeGette’s campaign said the congresswoman was proud to have made the ballot through the assembly process.

“This is ultimately only a small first step with a small group of people,” Jennie Peek-Dunstone wrote in an email. “Now, we are talking with hundreds of thousands of Democrats and unaffiliated voters across the District. Diana has deep support across Denver because she’s always fought for us. She’ll keep championing our progressive values by standing up to Trump, fighting for universal health care, and defending our democracy — just as she always has.”

Denver is a Democratic stronghold, meaning that whoever wins the primary is all but guaranteed to win the general election. In 2024, DeGette defeated her Republican challenger with 77% of the vote.

Kiros’ background

A child of immigrants, Kiros was born in Ethiopia but moved to Denver with her family as a baby. She left the city to attend Washington College in Maryland and went on to attend law school at the University of Notre Dame. After passing the bar exam, she began work as a securities regulation attorney at , one of the biggest law firms in the country.

Kiros said that two years in, firm leaders fired her for a by Hamas in Israel, which responded by launching a war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the post, she questioned Israel’s legitimacy as a state and disavowed about the rise in antisemitism.

“This letter rightfully rebukes the anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and bigotry of all kinds that has spiked in recent weeks, but then goes on (to my confusion) to cite ‘calls for the elimination of the Israeli state’ as anti-Semitism,” she wrote. “… To conflate such bigotry with the geo-political question of Israel’s legitimacy is one of the greatest travesties in this conflict.”

More recently, Kiros has been criticized for sharing last month with a video that said Democrats “fellate Israel” and “suck (expletive).” The video was promoting an online rally for progressive candidates and speakers.

Kiros said she didn’t write that phrasing and doesn’t endorse that language.

After her firing from the law firm, Kiros says she decided to get more involved in politics. Now, she’s pursuing a doctorate in public policy with a focus on “democracy reform” at .

In 2024, she volunteered as the communications director for Democrat John Padora’s campaign in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District — one of the most conservative seats in the state and now represented by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.

‘Our party isn’t fighting back’

Kiros’ online ads , calling out not only DeGette but also former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. One shows large Xs over photos of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former President Joe Biden while Kiros says: “We hear politicians say over and over that we need bold leadership, progress and change. We’ve heard this for years. Decades. But they never deliver.”

“Our party isn’t fighting back like they should,” she goes on to say.

Kiros is endorsed by the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Justice Democrats. She says that if elected, she sees herself aligning with members of Congress like U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

She would use her position, she said, to “call out the Democrats who are not actually fighting for our values” and pressure them to change the votes she disagrees with. That could include civil protests and threatening quorum.

Her top three policy priorities would be passing “Medicare for All” and universal child care and creating a publicly financed election system similar to the one that Denver uses in city elections, which includes public matching for smaller-dollar donations.

DeGette supporters emphasize that the congresswoman is also a co-sponsor of Medicare for All legislation. Angie Anderson, a Platt Park resident and mother of 2 young children, said she’s heard DeGette talk about it.

“I consider myself pretty progressive, and I think that she represents me very well,” said Anderson, who said she has voted for DeGette in every election since she’s lived in Denver.

Ocasio-Cortez even gave DeGette a shout-out for her support of the policy .

“She is one of the most powerful people in Congress on health care,” Ocasio-Cortez said to the crowd of 30,000 people. “And Diana DeGette is a co-sponsor of Medicare for All. She believes in the guaranteed right to health care for every American. Thank you for electing her.”

Anderson said she thinks Kiros and DeGette are actually pretty similar politically.

“I just think the real difference is that Rep. DeGette has many years of experience and is actually a very skilled policymaker and legislator,” she said. “I take issue with the idea that youth and inexperience is fundamentally required to effect change.”

What did assembly win mean?

After Kiros’ assembly win, a wide swath of political observers jumped in to say that while the event’s outcome was surprising, it wasn’t particularly meaningful for the upcoming primary.

Doug Friednash, a former Denver city attorney and chief of staff to then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, wrote in a Post opinion piece recently that assemblies exclude the vast majority of voters, resulting in a “tiny, highly motivated slice of activists” to determine results.

“More and more extreme candidates in both parties have effectively used these caucuses to fly under the radar and effectively organized a small cadre of activists, like the Democratic Socialists, to show up at the caucus, leading to stunning results that make most voters shake their heads in extreme disbelief,” wrote Friednash, now a partner with Denver-based law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck.

At the very least, the win showed that Kiros’ team found a way to out-organize DeGette’s team. But it remains to be seen if that will continue through the primary election.

Kiros and her supporters agree that her assembly win doesn’t mean she’s a shoo-in to win the primary.

“I don’t think that folks who talk about the assembly not being reflective of the general electorate are wrong,” Kiros said. But she noted it was unusual for an incumbent to lose an assembly vote.

“DeGette has been challenged before,” Kiros said. “This is a different kind of campaign.”

Mabrey said finding ways to raise money for her campaign will be one of the keys for Kiros in the remaining months before the primary.

“Melat����ap going to need an injection of grassroots campaign cash to keep up,” he said.

Through the end of 2025, she had raised about $204,000 and spent nearly $138,000. DeGette had raised about $729,000 and spent $507,000 through then, while James had raised about $179,000 and spent $86,600.

Despite having lower cash reserves than DeGette, Kiros is getting recognized more often when in public, she said. During a recent hourlong interview with The Post at a Capitol Hill coffee shop, two people stopped by the table to introduce themselves and voice their support for her.

“I’m totally voting for you, dude,” one said. “Your campaign is (expletive) awesome.”

Between now and June, Kiros plans to knock on doors, call voters, work with businesses and use digital advertising to get her message out. Nearly 200 people volunteered at a recent weekend canvassing event, she said.

“The thing that we need to do to win,” she said, “is to give people enough faith that getting involved will make a difference.”

Staff writer Seth Klamann contributed to this story.