Progressives look to Colorado as next test of a rising movement
By Arit John, CNN
(CNN) — Almost immediately after scoring a series of upset victories in New York last week, members of the rising progressive movement started looking ahead to their next target: Colorado’s 1st Congressional District.
Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist and lawyer, is challenging 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette for the solidly blue seat in Denver, where she and her allies hope voters are also ready for change.
“I think voters have realized that the party and leadership are failing to meet this moment in a meaningful way, and it’s time for leaders who are actually going to be fighting for the interests of working people,” Kiros told CNN.
But as an emboldened left flank looks to Tuesday’s primaries, seeking to build on momentum after all of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s US House endorsements won their races, some warn that Denver isn’t New York City.
Ted Trimpa, a longtime Democratic strategist who helped build up Colorado’s Democratic infrastructure, warned his party against reading too much into last week’s results.
“Mamdani is not the messiah for Democrats,” Trimpa said. “And if Democrats think that he is, then they’re wandering around the wrong desert.”
Roughly half of the state’s voters are unaffiliated. And while Democrats hold both Senate seats and the governorship, the state has tended to elect more moderate candidates who have been willing to buck the party.
That willingness to at times demonstrate an independent streak, however, is increasingly coming under fire. Gov. Jared Polis was censured by the state Democratic Party last month for granting clemency to election denier Tina Peters. And the state’s two senators, one running for reelection and the other for governor, are facing blowback over their past votes for members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
Progressive momentum
Within hours of Assemblymember Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier’s projected wins in their New York primary races, fellow candidates backed by Justice Democrats took to their group chat to discuss how they could boost Kiros through fundraising, phone banking, or campaigning with her.
“Every race this cycle has added more and more momentum to the next,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for the group, which backs progressive candidates who oppose corporate PACs. “What we’ve been really proud of as well is how much every candidate of ours who wins goes on and tries to pay it forward to the next.”
DeGette has faced primary challenges in the past, but Democratic strategists in the state say this is likely to be the incumbent’s toughest race in years.
This spring, both DeGette and Kiros sought to get on the ballot through the party-run caucus and assembly process, in which candidates need to win the support of 30% of party activists to get their name on the primary ballot. After DeGette only narrowly qualified, and was outperformed by Kiros, she ramped up her campaigning.
“I think this is probably the strongest challenge that she’s ever faced, but I also think she’s taking it as seriously as it needs to be,” said one longtime Colorado Democratic strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I wouldn’t be shocked if either outcome happens.”
A third candidate in the race, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, qualified for the ballot by collecting voter signatures.
The 1st District primary has covered familiar territory, as the candidates have squared off over who’s best suited to fight the Trump administration.
“I’ve won contested primaries before, and I’m confident about this one,” DeGette said in a statement to CNN. “I’m running hard and talking to voters every day about what matters to families here, not national narratives playing out in other states.”
The race has also centered on Kiros’ vocal criticism of US relations with Israel. The first-time candidate was fired from a law firm in 2023, after she refused to take down an open letter arguing that student protesters’ calls for the elimination of Israel should not be conflated with antisemitism.
But some of her comments on US-Israel policy have drawn scrutiny. She recently faced criticism for declining to describe as antisemitism a firebomb attack on protesters showing support for Israeli hostages held by Hamas. One person was killed and another dozen were injured in an attack, which investigators say the perpetrator planned for a year, telling the police he was driven by a desire “to kill all Zionist people.”
“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” Kiros said in an interview with 9News. “All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed.”
Kiros, who received a late endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders earlier this month, has criticized DeGette for accepting donations from corporate PACs. The incumbent has defended her progressive bona fides, pointing to her work as an impeachment manager as evidence of her record fighting Trump.
“Now is not the time to gamble and send somebody with no experience to Washington,” DeGette, who has spent nearly three decades representing Colorado’s most liberal district, argued at a candidate forum earlier this month.
In the final days of the election, a flood of money has poured into the race to boost DeGette, including more than $1.5 million from Pro-Choice Majority Action.
The groups have aired positive ads calling DeGette “the strongest voice fighting Trump” and an advocate for Medicare for All and defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They’ve also attacked Kiros. One ad from Mile High Accountability Project, a super PAC that was registered on April 29, called Kiros a recent Denver resident and accused her of wanting to divide Democrats. The ad says her supporters want to defund the police, abolish the Senate and withdraw from NATO.
“Donald Trump loves Democrats like Kiros,” the ad says. “Enough attacks on Democrats. Enough division.”
Kiros, whose family immigrated to Denver from Ethiopia when she was a baby, called the criticism that she just moved to the state “disrespectful,” and said other attacks were misrepresenting her record.
“It’s reading as obviously desperate to a lot of our voters,” she said. “It’s reading as Republican-esque, frankly, as well, and isn’t actually speaking to the things that Denverites really care about, which is how you’re going to make the city affordable for them.”
An anti-establishment push?
Kiros’ campaign comes alongside several other candidates testing voters’ appetites for change in Colorado this week.
“I think everybody’s nervous,” said Alvina Vasquez, a Colorado-based Democratic strategist. “I don’t think anybody feels super confident.”
In the US Senate race, progressive state Sen. Julie Gonzales is challenging incumbent Sen. John Hickenlooper, a longtime fixture of Colorado politics who governed the state before heading to Washington.
“John Hickenlooper has been in office for over 20 years,” she said in a campaign ad. “I know that we’re not fooled by his so-called common-sense approach, because there is no sense in voting for Donald Trump’s nominees.”
Hickenlooper voted for several Trump Cabinet nominees, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. But a spokesperson for the senator noted in a statement that he opposed several other nominees, including former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“Hickenlooper has said that knowing what he knows now — that not a single one of the cabinet officials stood up to Trump’s lawlessness and corruption — he wouldn’t support any of them,” the statement said.
In the Democratic gubernatorial primary to succeed Polis, who is term-limited, Sen. Michael Bennet’s path to the nomination has been complicated by Attorney General Phil Weiser. Weiser has contrasted the senator’s votes to confirm Trump’s nominees with his own work suing the Trump administration.
He’s also framed himself as the outsider in the race, and argued Bennet should stick to his current role.
“Michael Bennet’s got 18 years of experience in Washington,” Weiser said in a recent interview with a local Fox News affiliate. “We need to keep him there.”
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