Democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeats 15-term incumbent in Colorado House primary

The democratic socialist Melat Kiros unseated long-serving US representative Diana DeGette in Colorado’s primary elections held on Tuesday, after a campaign in which support for Israel became a wedge issue among voters. The Associated Press reported that Kiros had defeated DeGette for the Democratic nomination in the deep-blue first congressional district centered on Denver. The victory of Kiros came a week after New York voters unseated two Democratic congressional incumbents and replaced a third who was retiring with candidates who had campaigned on standing up to Israel amid accusations that it was carrying out a genocide in Gaza. Kiros, 29, was born in Ethiopia in 1997 – the year DeGette arrived in Congress – and graduated from law school at the University of Notre Dame in 2022. The following year, she wrote a blog post rejecting accusations that law students who protested Israel’s counterattack after 7 October were antisemitic. The New York law firm where Kiros was working fired her after she refused to take the post down, and she then went into politics. After announcing her run for Congress, Kiros picked up endorsements from progressive senator Bernie Sanders, as well as the Democratic Socialists of America and Justice Democrats, progressive groups that had also been involved in New York’s primaries. …