The purge of establishment candidates continued Tuesday as Democratic primary voters in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District rejected yet another longtime incumbent. With nearly 93% of the vote counted, democratic socialist Melat Kiros, 29, led 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette, 68, by almost 10 points, 51.3% to 41.7%. In the heavily Democratic district, Kiros is the overwhelming favorite to win the general election.
Although very little polling had been conducted in the race, Kiros entered Election Day with momentum on her side after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani-backed candidates swept last week’s Democratic primaries, sending shockwaves through the political world.
Ahead of the election, the far-left, Ethiopian-born attorney told ABC News she hoped to “channel voters’ anger with the political system.” And it will come as no surprise that her positions are every bit as radical as those of her comrades in New York.
The controversial Kiros was fired by the law firm Sidley Austin in November 2023 after publishing an open letter challenging her employer’s response to the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that spread across the country following Hamas’s October 7 massacre in Israel. The firm offered her the chance to take the letter down or be fired. She refused to take it down. In the letter, she questioned how “calls for the elimination of the Israeli state” could be construed as antisemitism.
She wrote, “the Israeli government has weaponized anti-Semitism to defend its crimes against the Palestinian people and quell any resistance or critique against it.” She also claimed, “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.”
It almost goes without saying that Kiros, now a barista and Ph.D candidate, has received the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The Wall Street Journal reported that Sanders “tapped his list of supporters to fundraise and turn out voters on behalf of Kiros.”
One of Kiros’ most egregious positions was her claim that it was impossible to know whether a Boulder, Colorado, attack on a group of Jewish protesters marching to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, was antisemitic. The attacker, Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry, who was in the U.S. illegally, hurled Molotov cocktails at the demonstrators in June 2025, killing an elderly Jewish woman and injuring several others. (I reported on this story here.)
In a recent interview with radical Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, she doubled down on those sentiments, calling the massacre “an inevitable consequence of apartheid, of occupation, decades of occupation.”
Similarly, in a June 22 interview with Colorado’s Next 9News, Kiros argued that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were the “inevitable” consequence of U.S. foreign policy:
Naturally, she supports abolishing ICE and granting citizenship to all illegal migrants:
In the clip below, Kiros calls for “free health care, child care, public transportation, and ‘social housing,’ all paid for by the federal government.”
During her combative victory speech, Kiros boasted that she had stood by her principles in 2023, even when the cost for doing so was her job.
Although you better believe the primary victories of democratic socialists are causing consternation among establishment Democrats, party leaders are trying to put on a brave face. In the days since the New York primaries, Democrats — in lockstep as always — are insisting they’re not worried about a socialist/communist takeover of the party because theirs is a “big tent.” Of course they’re worried.
In a recent post, I asked readers to consider the following scenario:
Democrats reclaim the House in November with a razor-thin majority. Speaker Hakeem Jeffries needs every Democratic vote to pass a key piece of legislation without Republican support. That would give New York’s three democratic socialists [and Colorado’s one] enormous leverage. What price might they demand in exchange for their votes?
An X user made an interesting point about the recent successes of democratic socialist candidates: “Communism is the Trojan horse. Islam is the destination. Without the Islam pipeline of SJP and MSA and CAIR, the DSA would not be winning. Just know that.”
Finally, for those pushing back against the idea that democratic socialism is simply a euphemism for communism, a rhetorical rebranding to make it more palatable to the electorate, the clip below of Democratic Socialists of America National Leader David Jenkins admitting that “Our Goal Is Communism” might be of interest.
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