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Socialist Momentum Grows as Melat Kiros Wins in Denver

A democratic socialist who lost her job for speaking out about Gaza unseated a 29-year incumbent.

Leftists toppled a three-decade incumbent they’d made the face of the Democratic Party’s failures on Tuesday in Denver amid an anti-establishment wave that has powered progressive and socialist midterm victories across the country.

Voters chose democratic socialist Melat Kiros, an attorney who lost her job for condemning her industry’s silence on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, ahead of longtime Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat representing Denver who touted progressive positions on domestic issues but drew criticism that she had grown complacent over three decades in Congress and generally followed the party line on support for Israel.

The Democratic Party Gets Its Populist Takeover

DeGette’s defeat in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District brought more bad news for Democratic incumbents reeling after losses in New York last week. Party leaders are facing a surge in public frustration with their brand and a cascade of voters who say they don’t wield power effectively. Though some Democratic leaders have discounted those races and claimed that the ascendant candidates’ vision is out of step with the party’s base, leftists and progressives are continuing to notch wins under their noses as they take the battle over the future of the Democratic Party to the polls.

“In the last week, we have taken out 40 years of incumbency,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for Justice Democrats, which backed Kiros and two of the candidates who won in New York. 

Members of the Democratic establishment “hate that they can no longer simply spend unlimited sums of money to buy a seat in Congress, and we are truly proving that organized people power and mass movements can beat the money,” he said. “We’re just having an amazing fucking cycle.”

Kiros, who will face Republican Christy Peterson in November, is heavily favored to win in the solid Democratic district.

“In the last week, we have taken out 40 years of incumbency.”

“In the last week, we have taken out 40 years of incumbency.”

Anti-incumbent sentiment also came through in the tight Democratic race for governor, where the state attorney general framed himself as the choice against the establishment despite holding statewide office. Two-term Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser defeated sitting Sen. Michael Bennet after casting himself as outsider who went after President Donald Trump in court dozens of times and won — a fairly standard tactic for Democratic state attorneys........

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