The NPR Politics Podcast - Gen Z democratic socialist ousts 30-year incumbent in Colorado

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

Colorado Democrats brought an anti-incumbency streak to their primaries this week. In Colorado's 1st congressional district, 29-year-old Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist, unseated 30-year incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette. In another upset, Sen. Michael Bennet lost his bid to win the nomination for governor. We discuss the anti-incumbent mood shaping this election season and take a look at one of the few toss-up House races in the country.This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, and Colorado Public Radio public affairs reporter Bente Birkeland.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Voters want change. We saw it again in Colorado's primary elections yesterday, which featured some real upsets. A Democratic socialist ousted a 15-term incumbent in one race, and in another, we saw a sitting U.S. Senator lose a primary for governor. Let's get into it. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. And we also have Colorado Public Radio's Benta Berkland with us. Hi, Benta. Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being here. So we're recording today's podcast at around 1238 p.m. Eastern Time on July 1st, 2026. And I want to start with the race benta in Colorado's first congressional district where a 29-year-old Democratic socialist named Melot Kiros won the Democratic primary for that seat. Tell us about her and tell us about how this race unfolded. This is a very safe blue district. And Malat Kuros was born a year after Diana to get was first elected to Congress. So DeGette has been in Congress for three decades. Kuros, a first-time candidate, touted herself as a politician for the working class. Her family immigrated to Denver from Ethiopia when she was a baby.

Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed her campaign and she had viral Instagram videos and so many enthusiastic volunteers and supporters. And she won the backing of voters like Carson Brownlee. He's 30 years old and he's unaffiliated. in Colorado, unaffiliated voters can vote in party primaries. They just have to select one. So he was one of the many unaffiliated voters in this Democratic primary election. And he said he voted for generational change. Diana gets been in office for 30 years.

And that's not that unique to her, you know. And I think fresh blood is healthy for the political process. It, for the people that have been in, you know, we have a balance of experience. But if new people are coming into it, you know, it keeps the pressure on. Because at the end of the day, if you're in politics, you're ever, represent the people. Am I correct? I understand this touches on a lot of trends that we've been seeing all the year, but am I correct to still be surprised at a 15-term incumbent losing to a 29-year-old candidate? Yes, a lot of people were very surprised. And keep in mind, this was a three-way race.

So a third Democrat, Wanda James, didn't gain much traction, but I definitely wondered how that would impact things, because you did have more than one option if you didn't want Diana to get to go back in Congress. But we heard time and again from voters that they were angry and frustrated with incumbents and with Washington. And DeGette didn't make this case to voters that her seniority and all her decades of knowledge were an asset. And I will just add, there's a deep bench in Denver of Democrats who were kind of waiting in line for DeGette to retire.

So a lot of the political talk today is like, can you believe this outsider who didn't come from the state legislature, didn't come from city council unseeded, DeGette. And the thing about DeGette is. is it's not like she was a squishy, moderate Democrat. She is a progressive Democrat. But at this point, voters saw her as being part of the system, a system that they feel like is failing them. This is a phenomenon that we're seeing play out in a number of races this year.

I talked to Adam Green, who's the head of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. They called themselves bold progressives. They are out there helping support. reporting these outsider candidates. And what he said is that, you know, many candidates have this thing in common. They are people who are going to shake up the system. They are economic fighters. They are outsiders. And so he puts in that category people like Graham Platner in Maine, as well as Kyrus in Colorado. Well, and I wonder about the connection to specifically the Democratic Socialists of America, because we saw that last week right in New York. with these candidates who were associated with the mayor there, Mom Dani, beating incumbents in Congress

in their primaries there as well. Are we starting to see a trend with that specific ideology? Miles, you bring up an interesting question about that label, Democratic Socialists of American. What does that mean? And I think for this particular race in Colorado, we did talk to a lot of voters who were focused on U.S. support for Israel, outside corporate PAC spending, and just what that meant for candidates. And so Kuros described what happened in the deadly war in Gaza as a genocide and criticized Degat for not pushing back against Israel enough. And that was a theme we saw. Kuros, I will say, drew broad criticism for declining to say that a deadly firebombing attack in Boulder was anti-Semitic. And the attacker there did target a group of predominantly Jewish demonstrators.

But aside from that, you know, Israel was definitely a factor in this race, but we still overall have the generational change and people wanting this fresh face. And at age 29, Kuros would be Colorado's youngest member of our congressional delegation, although we have a lot of young members, which I think is unique for a state. President Trump has been messaging that basically the left is moving towards communism and these warnings have been getting more dire. lately. How do you think Republicans are going to kind of seize on these DSA candidates this year? Yeah, I was at the White House yesterday talking to a senior White House official. And I was like, so do you think that affordability is really going to be like the main issue in these elections? And he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, affordability. We've got things to say about that and also communism. It is not a stretch to say that the White House and Republicans view this rise.

of candidates, nominees labeled Democratic Socialists of America, they see this as a messaging gift. And no, they are probably not going to be able to defeat these candidates in bright blue districts. But they can take that message about, oh, Democrats, they are out of touch with real America. I mean, this is very much in line with Republican messaging that we've seen for years. but they are going to grab onto this and take the most controversial things that these candidates say and use that in more swing and moderate districts where you need swing voters, where you need independent voters, if you're going to win. I mean, there are a lot of districts where Republicans are hanging on by a thread,

and this is a kind of message where they can say, do you really want this party to be in control of Congress? And one of those districts is also in Colorado, in the 8th district, Benta, right? I mean, this is one of the true toss-up districts in the country, one of the few left after this sort of gerrymandering wars the last year. So I want to hear what happened in the primary there last night as well. Yes. I mean, this is a district just north of Denver and drastically different than the Denver district. It was drawn by Colorado's independent region.

Districting Commission to be a toss-up, and it truly is. It's the state's newest district. It was first won by a Democrat. That Democrat narrowly lost, won by a Republican. Gabe Evans, he's in Congress now. This is his first re-election. He didn't face a primary challenge, but on the left, two Democrats were vying to take him on, a former state lawmaker Shannon Bird. She's much more moderate and pitched herself as someone who could win in a purple district and bring people together. And then you had Democrat Manny Routanel. He is a current state lawmaker, more progressive. And he won the primary overwhelmingly.

And he leaned into his family background. His mother immigrated from the Dominican Republic. He was raised by a single mother. He is pitching, fighting for the working class and affordability. And then, of course, pushing against the Trump administration. But this is so close to Denver yet so far away when it comes to politics. The Democrats in this district are much different. And then Colorado, most voters are unaffiliated. So any person who's successful in November in this eighth congressional

district will need a lot of unaffiliated voter support. Colorado's eighth congressional district is seen as a key pickup opportunity for Democrats in these midterms. And there aren't that many of them. And I think this is going to be one of the interesting questions also in California's 22nd congressional district. had a primary where there was a more moderate Democrat or a more establishment Democrat and then a more progressive Democrat. And the more progressive Democrat won, that again is another one of these swing districts that is very close. And I think that there's a real question about whether the, you know, sort of institutional wisdom idea that you need a moderate Democrat in a moderate district is the answer or whether the answer is you need a Democrat who speaks to the sort of primal rage that a lot of voters are feeling right now.

All right. Well, we can take a quick break and more on Colorado in just a moment. And we're back. And we're going to talk about the governor's race in Colorado now. Colorado has an open governor's seat because Democratic governor, Jared Polis, is term limited. Bend, I want to start with the Republican side here. That race and that primary is still too close to call at this point. But who's running and how has the race played out? Yes, this is a three-way race between a state senator Barbara Kirkmeier, a state lawmaker, Scott Bottoms, and then Victor Marx. He's a political outsider. He is a self-described high-risk humanitarian and has a ministry.

He has a big social media following and raised a lot of money. So right now this race is between Kirkmeier and Marx. Kirkmeier is a traditional Republican, and by that I mean, She works with Democrats in the state legislature. Democrats hold a majority in our state legislature. She serves on the powerful budget committee that crafts Colorado's budget. She's running on pushing back against Democratic one-party control in the state, raining in spending. And then Marx and Bottoms kind of split the mega wing of the party.

Bottoms is a pastor. His campaign was focused on rooting out pedophilia at the state legislature, providing no evidence that that's happening, but that was a focus of his. Whereas Marx has really leaned into his outsider status and people have found him charming, but he does have a very dicey background. He's talked about committing a homicide at age seven and not provide evidence for that. So right now, again, too close to call between Marx and Kirkmeyer. Wow, a lot to take in there. That was a lot. Yeah. I want to ask about how the president is coming up in the president is coming up in the primary because I feel like in every Republican primary, almost every Republican primary we've talked about

this year, it a lot of times just comes down to who can make the argument that they are closer to President Trump's visions in a lot of ways. But, you know, Colorado has a pretty complicated relationship with the president right now. It's a blue state. There's been a lot of, I mean, the whole Tina Peters thing that we've talked about on this podcast a bunch. How did President Trump come up on the campaign trail in that race? It didn't come up a lot. I mean, keep in mind, at the state level, President Trump isn't a popular figure in the state. And even in some red pockets, when you look at the voting over the last presidential cycles that Trump has run for president, you see the support and even some conservative areas

lowering. You know, the margin is getting lower and lower. I think that especially for, you know, Marx, he's leaned into that a little bit and certainly captured that mega sentiment, if you will, but it hasn't been the focus. It's just really Democrats have been focused on Trump a lot, not as much Republicans at this point. Okay, well, I want to turn to the Democratic side here, which had a result that, again, this is one of those ones where I'm not sure if I'm the only one who's surprised by this or if everyone was surprised by this, but the U.S. sitting senator, Michael Bennett, was running for the Democratic nomination for governor. and he lost to the sitting attorney general, Benta. Can you lay out this race?

Yes. So Bennett was definitely the frontrunner. He served three terms in the U.S. Senate, a well-known politician in Colorado. People may remember he briefly ran for president. And it was his race to lose. And early on, political circles in Colorado, people said Bennett's going to win. And in fact, he kind of cleared the field because a lot of people want to be governor. We're a blue state.

We have a term limited governor. people were eyeing that seat. Well, you have Phil Weiser. He's Colorado's current Attorney General. He's wrapping up eight years, was term limited. And Weiser really ran this campaign to capture the progressive wing of the party. This is a race where Weiser and Bennett are pretty similar on a lot of policy issues. But Weiser made the case that he would fight for Colorado, that he has done more to push back against the Trump administration, that Bennett should just stay in the Senate.

Bennett has two more years in his Senate term. And so Wiser just was seen as the change candidate in this race. You know, in the case of Bennett, we're in this stage in politics where people are looking for a fighter. And Bennett is kind of a happy go lucky, peaceful type. And in particular, in a governor's race, you know, this actually does matter. because the president of the United States and governors, depending on how it goes, can really tangle. And especially in a state where there could be wildfires and need for disaster assistance and all of these other things, that relationship between the governor and the White House can be very important. I think that's right. And one of the biggest lines of attack against Bennett was that as a U.S. Senator, Bennett voted to confirm. more of President Trump's cabinet nominees than other Democrats in the Senate. And that was something that did not sit well with a lot of voters.

One woman I spoke was said, how can we trust that person to then fight for the state as governor when we don't know what may come our way from the federal government? Colorado's an all-male ballot state. We've been in the news a lot because it's now changed its name, but diminning voting systems was headquartered here. You know, people are nervous about what's going to happen with elections going forward. And a lot of voters said we do need a very strong governor who will not back down.

Wow. So it looks like one exception to this anti-incumbent energy was Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper's primary. He was running for re-election. Bento, what happened there? Hick-N-Lupper was facing a challenge from the left, a progressive state lawmaker, Julie Gonzalez. And I think it was a confluence of a lot of different things. Any trend isn't going to be necessarily uniform because every race, every candidate is still unique. Hick-Kalumper, he's running for re-election. He was a governor for two terms in Colorado.

Prior to that, he was the Denver mayor. He was very high profile. He is the most well-known politician in the state. He did take this challenge seriously. He built a campaign early on and didn't back down. And I think his opponent, Gonzalez, didn't run as strong a campaign. She didn't catch fire the way Wiser did or Milok Kiros. And she didn't go on the attention. attack as much about Hickenlooper's record as she could have. And so we did see Hickenlooper buck this trend. But it was closer than a lot of people were expecting. It was a lot closer than people were expecting when you consider just the name ID. Julie Gonzalez is a state senator in Denver. I cover state politics. No one ever knows who their state lawmaker is ever. And again,

that's just one part of Denver. That's not across the state. So she was not well known. She didn't raise a ton of money. So it is kind of incredible how close it was. Yeah, as of right now, Hickenlooper has roughly 55 percent of the votes compared to 45 percent for Gonzalez. But yeah, when I look at that result, I'm like, wow, that is not, when you're talking about the most well-known politicians in the state, that is not a blowout. Still, Tam, a sign that even in a win, voters still seem to kind of want change. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what we're seeing. And in some ways, Democrats can take heart from that, even if their incumbents are losing, because this is a midterm year. And right now, the president and his party control the House and the Senate.

And if the mood is about change, then that is potentially a problem for Republicans. All right. Let's leave it there for today. Thank you, as always, Bent. Always good to talk to you. Great to talk to you guys. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.

And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. And thank you for listening to the Empire Politics Podcast.