Democratic socialist Melat Kiros beat US 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.
In her victory speech, she said one of her goals is to “end the genocide in Palestine.”
She is set to join a growing class of democratic socialists and staunch Israel critics headed to Congress.
The race between Kiros and DeGette, in a district that covers nearly all of Denver, came one week after a slate of progressives won their Democratic primaries in New York City, energizing left-wing advocates who are looking for additional victories around the country.
A number of Jewish leaders and groups in Colorado voiced concerns about Kiros, who drew criticism after calling Hamas’s devastating October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel “inevitable” and declining to refer to a deadly June 2025 firebombing in Boulder targeting activists for Israeli hostages held in Gaza as an antisemitic attack.
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Kiros made her sharp criticism of Israel and its relationship with the United States a central plank of her campaign. Her platform includes a complete arms embargo on Israel and the end of military subsidies to the Jewish state.
Attendees celebrate after Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros won the Democratic nomination during a primary election night watch party at The Broadway, in Denver, June 30, 2026. (Rebecca Slezak/AP)
“We will not wait to put an end to the politics of the past, to get big money out of our politics, and to reject corporate PACs and AIPAC,” Kiros said to loud cheers during her victory speech.
The democratic socialist also said she would “not wait” to take the fight to US President Donald Trump and abolish ICE. “And no, we will not wait to end the genocide in Palestine,” Kiros said.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, wrote in a statement that Kiros’s ascension to Congress “in large part due to her stand for Palestinian rights is proof positive of how much the country has transformed over the last two years.”
Last month in Colorado, Kiros declined to say that the firebomb attack targeting a weekly rally in Boulder by activists for hostages was antisemitic. The attack killed an 82-year-old Jewish woman, Karen Diamond, and injured over a dozen people. Assailant Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 46, was convicted last month under a plea bargain and sentenced to life without parole.
But he pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges, with his lawyers arguing that the attack targeted “Zionists,” rather than Israelis or Jews. According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, Soliman “stated that he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”
“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” Kiros said when asked about the incident.
She has in the past opposed some measures to combat antisemitism and argued that calling for Israel’s destruction is not antisemitic.
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