Colorado Democrat Diana DeGette was counting on her decades of experience in Congress to sweep her to victory over her insurgent rival in her deep-blue district. .
The 15-term House incumbent pitched herself as the type of “strong, bold, hardened leader” who would hold President Donald Trump accountable. “Now is not the time to gamble and send somebody with no experience to Washington,’’ DeGette, 68, said at a candidate forum less than two weeks before the primary.
But instead of rewarding her long tenure in Washington, Democratic voters in the Denver-area district cast DeGette aside Tuesday in favor of Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist making her first run for elective office.
DeGette isn’t the only House Democrat to lose a primary this year. Last week, two of her colleagues from New York City — Reps. Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — were defeated by a pair of Washington outsiders.
And at least a dozen other long-established Democrats in safe seats face serious intraparty threats in the coming weeks. Some of the contests are marked by generational and stylistic differences; others are riven by stark ideological divisions over the role of corporate super PACs and U.S. policy toward Israel.
