The 29-year-old democratic socialist defeated veteran Rep. Diana DeGette in Denver’s Democratic primary, a victory for the party’s progressive wing and another sign that Israel has become a political identity testIt was supposed to be another routine night in a safe Democratic district, the kind where a veteran, well-known and well-connected member of Congress survives another primary on the way to a 16th term. Instead, Denver handed the Democratic Party another political earthquake.Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist, Ethiopian immigrant, former lawyer, Ph.D. student and barista, defeated Diana DeGette, the congresswoman who has represented the city since 1997.Melat Kiros interview Kiros led with 49.3% of the vote to DeGette’s 43.5%. In a district where Democrats enjoy a deep structural advantage, that means that barring a highly unusual political upset in November, Kiros is on her way to Congress and possibly to the progressive “Squad” in Washington. She is also poised to become the first Black woman from Colorado elected to Congress.Her victory is not only a generational upset. It is also a win for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and another sign that in some places, Israel has become a test of political identity.Kiros did not hide that. She built her campaign as a candidate who rejects corporate money, attacks the establishment, supports Medicare for All, public housing, free early childhood education and abolishing ICE. But alongside the cost of living and her fight against “big money,” Israel was central to her political identity.Kiros was born in Addis Ababa just weeks before her father won the U.S. visa lottery. Her family moved to Denver, where she said she grew up in poverty as her parents worked several jobs to pay bills and help her father complete his pharmacy studies.She holds degrees in law and economics and is now a Ph.D. student in public policy at the University of Colorado while also working as a barista. Before that, she worked in New York as a lawyer at the prestigious firm Sidley Austin, until she was fired in 2023 following a public letter she published criticizing law firms that had called on universities to take a stronger stand against antisemitism on campuses after the October 7 massacre.GalleryKiros, poised to become the first Black woman from Colorado elected to Congress (Photo: AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)(Photo: Melat Kiros for Congress)In that letter, which Kiros later turned into a central part of her campaign biography, she argued that calls for the elimination of the State of Israel should not automatically be equated with antisemitism. She said such a definition shuts down discussion in advance about a “one-state solution,” in which Israelis and Palestinians live under one government.She wrote that those who chill the employment prospects of law students over criticism of Israel are cooperating with “Israel’s weaponization of antisemitism.” Sidley asked her to remove the post. She refused, was fired and instead of distancing herself from the incident, turned it into a credential: a young candidate willing to pay a professional price to say what, in her view, the establishment forbids people to say.Since then, she has gone further. Kiros has called for a full arms embargo on Israel, including halting funding for defensive systems such as Iron Dome.“Weapons are weapons,” she said. “Even if they are meant to protect Israeli civilians, they give Israel cover to continue the genocide taking place in Palestine, and now the ethnic cleansing taking place in Lebanon.”In an interview with streamer Hasan Piker, she described the October 7 attack as “the inevitable result of apartheid and decades of occupation.” She later clarified that she did not believe it was justified, but insisted that the “conditions under which violence erupts” must be understood.In the same vein, she said the September 11 attacks were also an inevitable result of U.S. foreign policy that “destabilized the Middle East.”The statement that triggered the greatest outrage came after the Boulder attack, less than an hour from Denver. In June 2025, Mohamed Sabry Soliman allegedly attacked marchers who were calling for the release of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip. He threw Molotov cocktails, used an improvised incendiary device and shouted “Free Palestine.”Thirteen people were wounded, and Karen Diamond, 82, later died of her injuries. When Kiros was asked whether the attack was antisemitic, she refused to say so.Karen Diamond “I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” she said. “All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people because of what they maybe believed in.”Asked again whether she did not think it was antisemitic, she replied: “I don’t know what his intentions were.” In a district with about 19,000 Jewish adults, those comments were received as a disturbing signal.“We are panicking,” a senior official at the Jewish Community Relations Council in Colorado told ynet after the results became known.Rabbi Rachel Kobrin of Denver wrote that Kiros’ candidacy frightened her because it “reflects a public discourse that erases empathy toward Jews.”At the same time, Kiros won support from anti-Zionist activists and Jewish Voice for Peace. Minutes after her official victory, JVP issued a statement saying the result was first and foremost “a defeat for AIPAC, which tried to smear Melat as antisemitic.”DeGette, her veteran opponent, tried to present herself as an experienced progressive. On Israel, too, she was not a hawk. She supported a two-state solution, Israel’s right to defend itself and defensive assistance, but later opposed additional funding for offensive weapons and called for a cease-fire and humanitarian aid to Gaza.It was not enough. Kiros attacked her for receiving more than $1.5 million in donations from corporations and pro-Israel interest groups.DeGette warned voters in a video that went viral: “If the only issue you care about is funding bombs, then you should not vote for me. But now is not the time to gamble and send someone with no experience to Washington.”The voters decided otherwise. Kiros’ victory, backed by Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialists of America and other left-wing organizations, joins a series of successes by anti-establishment candidates in Democratic primaries, including Zohran Mamdani and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, and Janice Lewis George in Washington.Before the vote, DeGette said that “Denver, Colorado, is not New York City.” The result showed that even in a district once considered liberal but moderate rather than revolutionary, Israel is now an issue capable of bringing down veteran politicians.