Democratic socialist Melat Kiros beat U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in a Colorado House primary Tuesday, a stunning victory for the first-time candidate against a nearly 30-year incumbent and another win for progressive challengers across the country.
Kiros, a 29-year-old lawyer turned doctoral student, is the latest candidate to rise from the party's left flank and boot establishment-backed candidates. That includes two self-described democratic socialists and a progressive who won their Democratic primaries in New York last week.
Kiros' victory adds to a nascent but clear uprising, stirred by frustration among some voters, that has vexed party leadership. Colorado's 1st Congressional District covers the dark blue city of Denver, and Kiros is expected to win in November and reach Congress in January.
“We are winning from coast to coast," Kiros said to an ecstatic audience and the blast of air horns. "We are taking back our party and our country!”
There were mixed results for progressives in Tuesday's other races.
Sen. John Hickenlooper fended off a primary challenge from self-fashioned “insurgent progressive” state Sen. Julie Gonzales. And a smaller divide separated the two Democrats competing for U.S. House in the state’s lone swing district, where the candidate considered more progressive, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, won.
Kiros says ‘we are just getting started’
Taking to a stage under a sign that read “Power to the People,” Kiros told her supporters that her win belonged to every one of them.
“This is a movement,” Kiros said. “We are just getting started.”
To an excited crowd, which had been singing and dancing moments before she got on stage, she laid out her plans: taking the fight to “Donald Trump and the oligarchy," abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, passing “Medicare for all” and ending the “genocide in Palestine.”
Those she thanked included DeGette, for standing up for women’s rights, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed her.
DeGette — a more progressive lawmaker herself — had comfortably controlled her House seat in Denver for nearly 30 years and was backed by Colorado’s established Democratic House delegation.
The incumbent had argued that experience in Congress is needed right now to combat Trump, while Kiros, a former attorney, accused DeGette of ineffectiveness.
DeGette did not speak or release a statement after the race was called Tuesday night.
Hickenlooper fends off a challenge from the left
His victory didn't come as a surprise to the political world, though it dampened a broader wave of progressive candidates beating establish-backed Democrats across the country.
Gonzales, the state senator who challenged the more centrist Hickenlooper, had attacked him for being an “incrementalist” and had said she previously joined the Democratic Socialists of America but that her membership had lapsed.
After his victory, Hickenlooper quickly turned his attention to Trump and said he'd never lost an election and didn't intend to in November.
“Coloradoans have once again made their voices clear. We are not going to accept Trump’s broken promises and cost of living emergency, or his constant corruption,” he said in a video posted to YouTube.
Rutinel to face GOP Rep. Gabe Evans in race key to House control
Colorado's 8th Congressional District is relatively new, stretching from the northern suburbs of Denver up through farming country, and has flipped party control in recent elections.
Evans now holds the seat, after beating the Democratic incumbent in 2024.
Party leaders thought the more moderate Shannon Bird, a former state representative, was best equipped to challenge Evans. But Rutinel, who had the more progressive record, beat Bird Tuesday night.
The district is heavily Hispanic and poorer than much of the rest of the state, and that's where Rutinel, who is Latino, planted a flag, arguing his personal story and more aggressive economic agenda would be more potent against Evans.
“This is the moment for all the kids out there who had the deck stacked against them,” Rutinel said in his victory speech. “I’m going to work with everything I have so that those kids have the same opportunities to live out the American Dream that I did.”
Progressives could find new ally in governor's mansion
Phil Weiser, the state attorney general, won the Democratic primary Tuesday and will be favored to win come November. Term-limited Democratic Gov. Jared Polis will depart after two-terms governing with a more moderate touch, at times stymieing progressive state lawmakers.
Weiser, who formerly served in the presidential administrations of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, is considered to be more sympathetic to the party's left. Michael Bennet, the U.S. senator who Weiser beat Tuesday, would likely have brought a similar change.
On the campaign trail, Weiser and Bennet struggled to show major differences in their political agendas, and instead often attacked each other over who could better stand up to Trump.
Weiser hammered his point home in a victory speech to ecstatic, sign-waving supporters who crowded around the candidate.
“In the face of a lawless bullying Trump administration trying to intimidate us, rip away our rights and freedoms," Weiser said, “you made it clear that we need a leader who will fight back and never bend the knee.”
After his loss, Bennet spoke to supporters. “Sometimes the harder path is the right path, even when it doesn’t lead where you’d hoped," he said.
The three candidates seeking the Republican nomination included state Rep. Scott Bottoms, a further right state lawmaker. State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer was considered the more conventional Republican, while Victor Marx was something of a wild card candidate with an eclectic past.
Kirkmeyer and Marx were locked in a tight race that was too early to call Tuesday night. ___ Associated Press reporter Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.