On the heels of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's (D.) socialist sweep in New York City congressional primaries, a far-left House challenger who called both the October 7 and September 11 terror attacks "inevitable" appears well-positioned to take down an established Democrat who has represented Denver for nearly 30 years.
Both the challenger, self-described democratic socialist Melat Kiros, and her opponent, Rep. Diana DeGette, opted to qualify for the upcoming June 30 primary ballot through a vote from Denver Democrats at a local party convention in late March, where candidates must receive at least 30 percent of the vote to secure ballot access. Kiros trounced DeGette, receiving 67 percent of the vote to the 15-term incumbent's 33 percent, meaning that DeGette nearly failed to qualify for the primary. Months later, in June, a poll conducted for Justice Democrats by Data for Progress showed Kiros with a 5-point lead.
Kiros, like the Mamdani-backed House challengers in New York, is an outspoken anti-Israel activist. During a May interview with radical anti-American streamer Hasan Piker—who has said "America deserved 9/11"—Kiros called Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack "an inevitable consequence of apartheid, of occupation, decades of occupation." The remark prompted a rebuke from the Jewish Community Relations Council, which accused Kiros of having "ignored or treated as morally insignificant" the "fears and lived experiences" of Jews. It also prompted a reporter for Denver's NBC affiliate, Kyle Clark, to ask Kiros if she believed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks "were the inevitable consequence of American foreign policy." Kiros said they were.
"Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East that forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response," she replied. "And again, just like I said before, our responsibility is to getting rid of those conditions that lead to violence in the first place."
Melat Kiros has said the massacre of Israeli civilians on Oct 7 was "the inevitable consequence of apartheid."
I asked Kiros if she thought the same thing about 9/11 and US foreign policy.
And she declined to call the firebombing of Jews in Boulder an act of anti-semitism. pic.twitter.com/WYTETFLNeX
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) June 23, 2026
The primary race for Colorado's First Congressional District mirrors the successful races this week by three insurgent anti-Israel House candidates in New York City, all backed by Mamdani. A central theme for Kiros, like her Big Apple counterparts Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, has been attacking her opponent's establishment bona fides and ties to corporate funding. She shared a liberal PAC's digital ad saying centrist Dems "fellate Israel" and "suck shit." She later removed it saying her campaign "didn't catch the language."
NEW: Melat Kiros, progressive challenger to Rep Diana DeGette (D-CO), posts a liberal PAC’s digital ad saying centrist Dems "fellate Israel" and "suck shit."
Kiros’ strong showing with party activists at caucuses this month nearly kept DeGette off the primary ballot. pic.twitter.com/jW8leiE7n7
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) March 24, 2026
DeGette, meanwhile, saw significant spending from establishment sources as Kiros's threat became more serious. And just as in New York, Tuesday's winner will almost certainly secure the House seat. Colorado's First Congressional District hasn't had a Republican representative in over 50 years.
Kiros shares another similarity with the Mamdani-backed candidates in the Big Apple: her aggressive stance against Israel. In 2023, she was fired as a first-year associate from the law firm Sidley Austin for writing an open letter meant to respond to an earlier letter from the firm rebuking antisemitism. Kiros argued that "conflating 'calls for the elimination of the Israeli state' with anti-Semitism" delegitimizes "one-state solutions called for by Palestinians and Israelis alike—one state, under the historic Palestine, where all citizens are equal under the rule of law, regardless of religion or ethnicity." She wrote that there is "no justification for the attacks on Israel on October 7th," then added, "It cannot be forgotten that violence does not occur in a vacuum" (emphasis hers).
When Clark asked Kiros if her past comments suggested "that Israel had it coming," she replied, "No, not at all," then justified the October 7 attack.
"It's about understanding the conditions in which violence and war happens, right? Israel is a country that has been accused of apartheid and occupation for decades now and has been able to resist any kind of change despite all of the, you know, frustration on the world stage that people have had for the conditions that Palestinians have been living in," Kiros said. She pushed for a total arms embargo, arguing that defensive weapons protecting Israel against attacks from Iran and its terror proxies "gives them the cover to continue the genocide that's taking place in Palestine and now the ethnic cleansing that's taking place in Lebanon."
Kiros also refused to call the June 2025 firebombing attack on a group of Jews in nearby Boulder antisemitic, saying, "I don't know what [the attacker's] intentions were." The assailant, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, shouted "free Palestine" as he threw Molotov cocktails, injuring more than a dozen and killing an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor. Soliman had been planning the attack for more than a year and told investigators he wanted to "kill all Zionist people."
Kiros has modeled her campaign after Mamdani's, according to the Wall Street Journal, though the socialist mayor has not endorsed her. She has, however, received support from a bevy of left-wing figures and organizations, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), Justice Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America, the Sunrise Movement, and Piker.
Piker was slated to join Kiros for a campaign rally earlier this month, but the venue—and two backup sites—abruptly canceled, forcing her to move the event outside the state capitol. Piker dropped from the rally, citing security concerns tied to the event being held outdoors, but still supported her via a livestream from Denver.
Kiros accused DeGette of calling on "her donor class to silence us." The incumbent denied her claim.
"She's free to make her own mistakes, and campaigning with an infamous anti-semite who says he 'hates this country' and thinks we 'deserved 9/11' is a big one," DeGette said in a written statement to Denverite.
One venue said it canceled due to "pressure and concern from the local community," while another cited security concerns. The third said its HVAC was "completely shot."
Elsewhere, Kiros, an immigrant, has called to abolish ICE and "to release anybody and everybody" in ICE detention centers "without any criminal record." She supports Medicare for All, a $22 minimum wage, and the Green New Deal, which she said "needs to be updated."
Neither Kiros nor DeGette responded to requests for comment.
