Rep. Diana DeGette has had a tough few weeks.

The Colorado Democrat is facing her first competitive primary in her 30-year House career on Tuesday. After a series of confrontations with voters — including a public meltdown in a coffee shop — an unfavorable poll kept out of public view, and speculation that she called on powerful allies to pressure venues to cancel planned participation in a rally for her opponent, a slew of new super PACs swooped in to keep DeGette’s campaign afloat in the final weeks of the race — including one funded by the pro-Israel lobby.

While DeGette has spent the campaign’s home stretch defending her record as a progressive, her leading opponent, democratic socialist Melat Kiros, has never been more optimistic.

After leftist candidates rode to victory in New York last week on a growing wave of anti-incumbent sentiment, Kiros said her campaign saw a major uptick in donors and volunteers. A coalition of leftist organizations backing her has run an aggressive field campaign and say they’ve out-organized DeGette, who didn’t take the challenge seriously at first and was almost kicked off the ballot in March. In a district full of the kinds of young voters who helped socialists win last week in New York, Kiros’s backers say a similar coalition could power another socialist challenger to topple the Colorado incumbent on Tuesday.

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“While the Democratic establishment reveals its contempt for its own voters by lashing out against the candidates their base elected, our candidates keep winning by taking on the corporate interests raising our prices to deliver a positive vision to make life more affordable for working class voters — from Medicare for All to ending taxpayer-funded genocide,” said Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats, which is backing Kiros.

DeGette’s challenge is emblematic of a wake-up call for many Democratic incumbents this midterms cycle, Andrabi said: Even being relatively “progressive” is no longer enough to fend off a challenger from the left, let alone to keep your seat.

“Voters are done watching Democrats take corporate PAC money and then wonder why nobody trusts them to fight,” Kiros said in a statement to The Intercept. “They are done with representatives who show up six weeks before a primary because a challenger finally scared them into it. The energy that showed up in New York is the same energy that’s showing up in Denver and we are ready for Tuesday night.”

Another progressive strategist who works with congressmembers and candidates and requested anonymity in order to speak freely said DeGette’s backers were worried. “Across multiple districts we’re seeing Dem primary voters unwilling to accept the usual platitudes from incumbents about their work ‘standing up to Trump’ as sufficient to earn their support,” they said.

“Voters across the spectrum are deeply frustrated with the Democratic Party’s ineffectiveness, and feel like many of these incumbents have been all talk and no action in this term,” they said. “There is broad anti-establishment sentiment that creates real opportunity for a next-generation challenger like in CO-01.”

The influx of super PAC spending for DeGette in the final days of the race came even as she had painted herself as further to the left. The incumbent has name-dropped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for example,in campaign ads, a candidate forum, and an interview.

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And while DeGette has said repeatedly she isn’t backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, pro-DeGette super PAC money came from one of several groups used this cycle by United Democracy Project, the super PAC for AIPAC, to back its preferred candidates without publicly getting involved in races. United Democracy Project provided more than a third of the money raised this year by the group behind the ads.

“AIPAC’s desperation to stop the pro-Palestinian movement’s momentum and our candidates bringing this fight forward proves just how much they are losing the Democratic Party,” Andrabi said.

DeGette has banked her reelection on reminding voters that she’s a progressive. Pointing to her three decades in Congress and a late endorsement from her Congressional Progressive Caucus colleague, former chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., DeGette has warned that electing Kiros — who was born the year after DeGette was first elected and who the incumbent says has no political experience or capital — comes with risks.

Kiros’s backers are using DeGette’s long record against her. They argue she has little to show for her 15 terms in Congress and say the wave of young voters turning out to oust incumbents and back leftist candidates across the country will work against her.

Throughout her time in Congress, DeGette has expressed her support for all the right marquee progressive priorities. She’s reminded voters that she helped write the Medicare for All bill and is the top Democrat on the committee that could make it a reality, and led fights to protect healthcare, the right to abortion, and the environment.

But her critics, including Kiros, say she’s rested on those laurels and done little to leverage her seniority in the Democratic caucus to pass meaningful legislation on those issues — and that part of her inaction is tied to her donors.

“The DeGette team clearly was not in the community talking to voters, because that is the only way they could have missed the energy behind our campaign and the hunger for leadership that is unbought and unafraid,” Kiros said.

Kiros and others have pointed to DeGette’s longtime support from the pharmaceutical industry, one of Medicare for All’s greatest foes, as a major reason she’s allowed the legislation to languish. DeGette has promised voters that if they reelect her and Democrats win the House this year, she’ll finally take over the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health, where she has served as ranking member since January 2025 and been a member since 2017, and bring the bill up for a vote.

There’s also the issue of Israel and Palestine. Despite naming her progressive bonafides, DeGette has described herself as pro-Israel and has a mixed record on related legislation. She’s not endorsed by AIPAC, but its super PAC is funding one of the groups spending against Kiros, an outspoken critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza who was fired for writing a post criticizing big law firms, including her employer, for blacklisting pro-Palestine protesters.

The group running the ads, Pro-Choice Majority Action, formed in May as an affiliate of EDW Action, which received $1 million from United Democracy Project between April and May. That’s about a third of the $2.7 million EDW Action reported since January. Another pro-Israel group, DMFI PAC, gave EDW Action $37,750 in April.

A spokesperson for the groups has said their support is not tied to a candidate’s position on Israel. United Democracy Project and DMFI PAC did not respond to requests for comment.

“Their support for a 30-year congresswoman who they don’t even publicly endorse is far less about Diana DeGette and far more about the extremes they have to go to blunt the momentum of first-time candidates like Melat who represent the will of the Democratic majority,” Andrabi said.

“We are seeing a new generation of leaders elected by a new generation of young people who are approaching politics with moral clarity,” said Denae Ávila-Dickson, a spokesperson for the youth-led Sunrise Movement, which is backing Kiros. “These elections make one thing clear: Candidates who are unapologetic about opposing the genocide in Gaza, willing to take on billionaires and corporate power, and committed to fighting for working people are the ones inspiring young voters.”

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The winner of the Democratic primary in heavily blue Denver is almost certain to be elected in November. And if Democrats win the House — the party in power tends to lose midterm seats, but Republicans are pushing forward aggressive plans to gerrymander and pass new voting restrictions — DeGette says Democrats will finally have the leverage they need to really stand up to President Donald Trump.

The DeGette campaign did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

DeGette’s detractors say a lack of urgency beyond just Medicare for All characterizes her record — and that she’s only been beating the M4A drum because she’s facing a credible challenger. Only seven bills she’s sponsored over her 29 years in Congress have become law or been enacted through other bigger bills, according to GovTrack. Most representatives pass zero or one bill each term, and Congress is in an era where historic levels of partisan gridlock mean it’s passing fewer bills than it ever has.

While legislation passed is only one of several measures of a member’s activity in Congress, DeGette’s Colorado colleague, Rep. Joe Neguse, a member of House Democratic leadership first elected in 2018, had 22 bills enacted in his first two terms — the most of any member last session. In 2024, the four Republican representatives with more than 10 years in office who had the most legislation enacted into law passed six bills each.

“No seat is safe when an establishment Democrat is taking millions from corporate PACs and calling it representation,” Kiros said. “The voters are ahead of the party establishment, and they have been for a while. The question is whether the party is finally ready to listen or whether they’re going to keep learning this lesson the hard way.”

The post Socialists Are Surging. In Colorado, a 29-Year Incumbent Is Sweating. appeared first on The Intercept.

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