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AIPAC Defeated Again – This Time in Colorado
Democratic socialist and underdog Melat Kiros won the Democratic primary for Colorado's first congressional district. Plus: Rep. Delia Ramirez demands answers about the Gaza 'Board of Peace.'
READ IN APP On this day in 1972, the first standalone issue of ‘Ms.’ magazine was published. Founded by Gloria Steinem, the groundbreaking feminist title is still in print.
Good morning, friends. Prem here, with two stories for you that together serve to illustrate how the monstrosity of the old world may at last be proving too much to bear. We all have our limits. A new world is no longer struggling to be born. Here it comes. To that end, prepare for elected Republicans to grow even more insane and ‘Reasonable Democrats’ to spiral even more, as socialism spreads from sea to shining sea in the United States!
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we consider another momentous win for the left, this time in Colorado; a determined Democratic effort to hold President Donald Trump to account over his preposterous Board of Peace and its plans for Gaza; and the Supreme Court turns Trump down on birthright citizenship, though not without four justices showing they don’t believe in… the Constitution. Let’s get to it.
Socialism’s Mile High Moment
Melat Kiros at a candidate forum on May 28, 2026, in Denver, Colorado. Photo by RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images.
A democratic socialist born in 1997 has unseated a veteran Democrat who was first elected to Congress in… 1997.
Last night, 29-year-old Melat Kiros beat 30-year incumbent Diana DeGette, 68, in the Democratic primary for Colorado’s first congressional district in Denver.
Kiros’s victory in the Mile High City comes just one week after a Zohran Mamdani-backed trio of democratic socialists – Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Brad Lander – strung together three primary wins in New York City. In total, three Democratic incumbents have been usurped by challengers from the left in just the past week.
The Colorado election is another notch in the belt for the democratic socialist movement – showing promise beyond the well-oiled machine that is the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
New York was not a one-off, says Bhavik Lathia, a Democratic strategist and spokesman for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “Kiros’s win validates that the same political energy is moving across the country — from Maine to New York to Pennsylvania to Colorado. The common thread is voters looking for outsider candidates who will fight Trump and corporate power with equal clarity,” he tells Zeteo. “The socialist sweep in New York showed that voters are hungry for a Democratic Party willing to change. Kiros’ win shows that hunger is national.”
AIPAC will be feeling super disappointed this morning. Again.
Just months ago, DeGette was leading Kiros by more than 30 points. Kiros had little name ID relative to the three-decade incumbent. Then, as Kiros surged, so did funded opposition against her. Super PACs linked to the real estate lobby, the pro-Israel group AIPAC, and the Democratic establishment – and some that came out of nowhere, with little disclosure – all jumped into the race in support of DeGette, and against Kiros.
Still, as is increasingly the case, millions in big money were not enough to best the DSA-powered campaign.
Kiros, an attorney born in Ethiopia who lost her job with a corporate law firm in New York after writing an article defending pro-Palestine college students, now joins an increasingly long list of outsider Democrats set to join Congress in November and challenge the party establishment.
Like Avila Chevalier and Valdez, Kiros is not committing to supporting Hakeem Jeffries as leader – instead demanding concessions on popular proposals with cross-partisan appeal, including Medicare for All, “ending corporate capture” of politics, and an arms embargo on Israel.
Kiros’s race wasn’t the only one in which pro-Israel forces lost. In Colorado’s 8th congressional district – a swing seat held by the GOP – Democratic Majority for Israel endorsee Shannon Bird lost big.
Bird, like DeGette, received support from a super PAC called Pro-Choice Majority Action, which was bankrolled through a daisy chain of groups whose funding traces back to AIPAC.
Elsewhere, Senator John Hickenlooper bested a primary bid from Working Families Party-backed progressive challenger, state Senator Julie Gonzales. In the governor’s race, Senator Michael Bennet was handily defeated by Attorney General Phil Weiser, who ran an anti-corporate campaign.
It is Kiros’s victory that is of particular significance.
In the wake of the New York City socialist sweep, Republicans and old guard Democrats closed ranks, all setting their sights on the bubbling political movement.
A small group of centrist Democratic members and candidates released a parochial pledge entitled the “Promise to America,” which glorified capitalism, demonized socialism, and vomited other vague centrist axioms about Getting Stuff Done and being Responsible.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, meanwhile, smugly listed off priorities for the democratic socialist movement, thinking the laundry list would sound absurd. Instead, his remarks were turned into a DSA hype video.
The goalposts have continued to move, again and again.
Mamdani would never win.
Fine, he won, but he won’t accomplish anything.
Fine, but his new endorsed candidates won’t win, too.
Fine, but that success can’t be replicated outside of New York City.
What’s next?