U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who has represented Denver in Congress for nearly 30 years, narrowly qualified for the June primary ballot on Friday at the 1st District Democratic assembly.
DeGette needed 30% of the vote to advance. She received about 33%, coming in second in the two-way race to first-time candidate Melat Kiros, who calls herself a Democratic socialist.
A third candidate, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, will likely be on the June primary ballot, too. James gathered petition signatures to make the primary ballot, bypassing the caucus and assembly process.
James’ signatures are currently under review by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. Most candidates who turn in signatures qualify for the ballot.
DeGette opted to only go through the notoriously unpredictable assembly process to make the primary ballot this year. She could have also gathered signatures — or, like James, only gathered signatures — to make the ballot.
Instead, DeGette gambled her career on the support of party activists participating in the caucus and assembly process, who make up only a fraction of the Democratic primary electorate in the district.
Melat Kiros appears at a debate hosted by the Colorado Young Democrats in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2025. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)While the assembly vote likely marks the closest DeGette has come to losing her seat in the decades she’s been in Congress, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s at risk of losing her seat in the June 30 primary.
First off, the delegate vote is not representative of the broader electorate.
There are about 465,000 voters eligible to cast ballots in the Democratic primary in the 1st District this year. There were 235 delegates participating in the 1st Congressional District Democratic assembly Friday night.
Only Democratic voters can participate in the caucus and assembly process, whereas Democrats and unaffiliated voters can vote in the party’s primaries. As of March 1, there were about 280,000 active, registered unaffiliated voters in the district and roughly 185,000 Democratic voters.
Caucus and assembly performance has not historically been a good predictor of primary success
Many candidates who win their party’s assemblies in Colorado have gone on to lose in the primaries.
In 2018, for instance, former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy won nearly 62% of the delegate vote in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, easily beating then-U.S. Rep. Jared Polis to secure the top line on that year’s primary ballot.
Kennedy lost in the primary. Polis, now finishing his second term as governor, received about 44% of the vote to Kennedy’s roughly 25%.
Democratic candidate for Colorado’s governorship, Cary Kennedy, responds to a question during a televised debate Monday, June 18, 2018, in Denver. Colorado’s primary election to determine which candidate will earn the Democratic nomination is set for next Tuesday, June 26. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)Other prime examples from both parties and from up and down the ballot:
State Rep. Ron Hanks, R-Cañon City, has twice won at assembly and then lost in the primary in his pursuit of higher office. In 2022, he won the top spot on the ballot in the U.S. Senate primary, knocking a list of other candidates out of the race. He lost by about 8 percentage points to Joe O’Dea, who skipped the assembly and gathered petition signatures to get on the ballot. In 2024, Hanks won the second-most delegates in the 3rd Congressional District GOP assembly but then lost by about 12.5 percentage points to Jeff Hurd, who skipped the assembly and petitioned onto the ballot. Then-chair of the Colorado Republican Party Dave Williams won the largest share of delegate votes at the GOP assembly in the 5th Congressional District in 2024. But he lost the primary to Jeff Crank by about 30 points. Crank didn’t participate in the assembly and made the ballot through signatures. Former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez won the biggest share of the delegate vote for governor at the 2022 GOP state assembly. But he went on to lose the primary to Heidi Ganahl, who lost to Polis in the general election. Ganahl came in second at the state assembly that year. U.S. Rep. Ken Buck was nearly kept off the Republican primary ballot in 2024 when he was beaten badly by Bob Lewis at the 4th Congressional District GOP assembly. He then easily beat Lewis in the primary — by about 48 percentage points. In House District 36, Democrat Bryan Lindstrom won the assembly in 2024 but lost to Michael Carter, who gathered signatures to make the ballot, in the primary. Carter beat Lindstrom by about 22 points.Of course, not every candidate who wins at assembly in crowded primaries goes on to lose in the election.
At the 2018 GOP state assembly, then-state Treasurer Walker Stapleton won 43% of the delegate vote for governor, taking the top line in the crowded race. He then won the four-way Republican primary with 48% of the vote before losing to Polis in the general election that year.
Republican Walker Stapleton, right, concedes to Democrat Jared Polis on Tuesday night, Nov. 6, 2018. He was flanked by his wife and children. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)Also in 2018, Phil Weiser won a decisive 53% of the delegate vote at the Democratic state assembly over state Rep. Joe Salazar and went on to win the primary, though by a narrow margin.
Weiser is running against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet for governor this year. Bennet dropped his assembly bid and has qualified for the ballot through petition signatures.
Some other examples of assembly winners in crowded and/or hotly contested primaries going on to win:
Democrat Mike Weissman won the Democratic assembly in 2024 in Senate District 28, where he was unopposed, and then went on to beat primary challenger Idris Keith, who petitioned onto the ballot, in the primary. Democrat Trisha Calvarese won the Democratic assembly in the 4th Congressional District in 2024 and went on to win the crowded primary. Then-state Rep. Gabe Evans won the three-way Republican assembly vote in the 8th Congressional District in 2024 and then went on to win the primary — by 55 percentage points.More about the Democratic candidates in the 1st District
DeGette’s chances of making the ballot appeared in doubt earlier this month when Kiros walloped her at the Denver County Democratic assembly nearly 2-to-1. DeGette secured just over 30% of the delegate vote, but projected confidence about how she would fare Friday.
“Diana received more than the required threshold and we are confident she will be on the primary ballot,” Jennie Peek-Dunstone, a spokesperson for the DeGette campaign, said in the aftermath of the county assembly.
The 1st District is almost entirely confined to Denver. A tiny sliver of the district is in Arapahoe County, which is why the county assembly results weren’t the final word on primary ballot access.
Kiros celebrated her victory Friday.
“The case we made tonight is the case we’ll make every day until June: Denver deserves a representative who answers to the people of this district, not to defense contractors, not to pharmaceutical companies, not to corporate PACs,” she said in a written statement.
DeGette, 68, was first elected to Congress in 1996, when she beat out former Denver City Councilman Tim Sandos in the Democratic primary. She won that primary by 12 percentage points and then the general election that year by 17 points.
Since then, she has never come close to losing her seat in a primary, let alone a general election.
House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security ranking member Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., gives opening remarks during a hearing with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 1, 2024, on the 2025 Energy Department budget. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)In 2024, DeGette beat her Republican opponent, Valdamar Archuleta, by 55 percentage points.
The 1st District is a Democratic stronghold. Before DeGette, it was represented by Democrat Pat Schroeder for 24 years.
Kiros, who was born in Ethiopia and moved to Colorado as a young child, is a first-time candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America branch in Denver. When she entered the race, she was working as a barista to pay for graduate school.
Previously, Kiros worked as communications director on the failed 2024 campaign of Democrat John Padora in the 4th Congressional District. Before her campaign work, the 2022 Notre Dame Law School graduate was a securities regulation attorney in New York at the firm Sidley Austin.
Kiros was fired from the firm in 2023 after writing an open letter criticizing the claim that calling for the elimination of Israel is antisemitic. She was responding to a missive signed by her firm and dozens of others.
“By chilling future lawyers’ employment prospects for criticism of the Israeli government’s actions and its legitimacy, you are complicit in Israel’s weaponization of antisemitism against legitimate concerns for the right of self-determination and the livelihood of the Palestinian people,” Kiros wrote.
A screenshot from Melat Kiros’ campaign launch video.Wanda James, the third Democrat running in the 1st District this year, was elected to represent thedistrict on the University of Colorado Board of Regents in 2022 for a term ending in early 2029. She was censured by other regents last year after she objected to a campaign aimed at educating people about the risks of using marijuana.
James’ colleagues on the board of regents felt she had violated a requirement that she act in the best interests of the university system. James and her allies said the censure was racist.
Colorado Board of Regents member Wanda James speaks during an election watch party Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in downtown Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)A longtime Democratic strategist known for her marijuana entrepreneurship, she worked for Gov. Jared Polis on his first congressional campaign and on his gubernatorial transition team.
Colorado Sun staff writer Taylor Dolven contributed to this report.
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