Migrant Wins Democratic Primary in Denver
Melat Kiros won — AP called it at 10:03 p.m. Tuesday, 49%-44% over 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.
WASHINGTON — Eleven months old. That’s how old Melat Kiros was when her family landed in Denver, having fled Tigray, Ethiopia, weeks after a genocide there that Washington still hasn’t fully reckoned with. On Tuesday night, at 29, she became the Democratic nominee to represent that same city in Congress — unseating Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., an incumbent who has held the seat since before Kiros was born.
The Associated Press called Colorado’s 1st Congressional District primary for Kiros at 10:03 p.m., with unofficial returns showing her ahead of DeGette by roughly six points, 49% to 44%, as University of Colorado Regent Wanda James finished a distant third with just over 7%. It was a rebuke of Colorado’s longest-serving member of Congress — delivered by a first-generation immigrant who spent the campaign’s final stretch pulling espresso shots at a Denver coffee shop
.From Tigray to Denver
Kiros was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and immigrated to Denver with her family in 1998, when she was 11 months old, after her father won a slot in the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery. She grew up in a working-class household inside Denver’s Ethiopian immigrant community — the same network of “chosen family” she now credits for raising her. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Washington College in 2018 and a law degree from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.
Fired Over Gaza, Rebuilt in Denver
Kiros practiced securities law at Sidley Austin’s New York office before the firm fired her in late 2023 after she published an open letter defending student protesters demonstrating against Israel’s war in Gaza. She has drawn a direct line between that firing and her own family’s history — invoking the Tigray genocide when discussing Gaza in interviews. She moved back to Denver, worked as a barista, and launched her campaign while pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Denver.
The Upset
Backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and Justice Democrats and running without corporate PAC money, Kiros campaigned on abolishing ICE, Medicare for All and housing affordability — a platform that survived a wave of outside spending attacking her ties to DSA’s more controversial positions, which Kiros herself said she didn’t hold. Her win puts her on track to become the first Black woman to represent Colorado in Congress and just the third woman to hold the 1st District seat since 1972.
“This is a movement, and we are just getting started,” Kiros told supporters at her Tuesday night watch party. Kiros now moves to the Nov. 3 general election as the presumptive winner in a heavily Democratic district covering Denver and parts of Arapahoe County.
Migrant Insider will tell you why an 11-month-old refugee from Tigray beating a 30-year incumbent isn’t an upset — it’s a preview. Paid subscribers get the follow-up nobody else is chasing. Join us, and send this to someone who needs to see what’s coming.
Best wishes to her! 👏