Melat Kiros is the first political star truly formed by the 2020s

What’s behind her shocking victory against a 30-year incumbent in Colorado — according to the candidate herself.

In many ways, Melat Kiros epitomizes the winds of change sweeping over the Democratic Party.

Kiros is a 29-year-old political newcomer who is disillusioned with the system, who calls ending aid to Israel “the moral question of our time,” and who is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

And on Tuesday, she handily defeated a Democratic incumbent who’s held her seat since the year before Kiros was born — Rep. Diana DeGette, of Colorado’s First District.

“This isn’t just about replacing one generation of leaders with another,” Kiros told me in an interview last month. “It’s about replacing it with moral clarity, with urgency, with courage — and making sure that the will of the voters is actually being represented and fought for at the federal level.”

Kiros’s race was closely watched as a test of whether Democratic incumbents outside New York City might be at risk from left-wing challengers — and her victory confirms that, at least in urban districts like her Denver one, they very much are.

DeGette wasn’t the only longtime establishment Democrat to stumble in Colorado’s primaries Tuesday. Sen. Michael Bennet, who was running for governor, lost to the state’s attorney general, Phil Weiser. (Bennet’s term is not up, so he will remain in the Senate next year.) And progressive candidates did well in several congressional and state legislative primaries, too.

Incumbent Sen. John Hickenlooper (D) defeated his progressive challenger, state Sen. Julie Gonzales. But he was only winning by about 10 points as of Wednesday morning — a strikingly close margin against a challenger who’d raised little money, considering how Hickenlooper has been a mainstay of Colorado politics for more than two decades.

The biggest star of the night, however, was Kiros, who sent a 30-year incumbent member of Congress into retirement.

And one way Kirios differs from Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez — the victorious DSA candidates in New York’s primaries last week — is that she doesn’t have a very lengthy record of left activism. In fact, Kiros only joined the DSA during this campaign, after she sought its endorsement.

In requesting their support, though, she had what was deemed to be one unimpeachable credential. Three years prior, as a law firm associate, she’d written an open letter criticizing Israel — and was fired for it.

What was then a career-ending offense became, in the context of this year’s primary elections, something like a badge of honor, winning key endorsers like streamer Hasan Piker over to her side.........

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