CO-01: DeGette spars with challengers Kiros, James in final Colorado 1st District candidate forum
Longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette on Friday night urged Denver Democrats to send her back to Washington, D.C., for a 16th term in Congress next year, as she looks to hold off a primary challenge from Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist and first-time candidate born four months after DeGette first took office.
Along with a third Democratic candidate on the ballot in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, DeGette and Kiros made their pitches in a candidate forum hosted by Colorado Politics at the Denver Press Club, a little over 10 days ahead of Colorado’s June 30 primary election.
It was the second and final campaign event featuring all three Democratic candidates in the 1st District, following a League of Women Voters forum last month. The district, the boundaries of which are almost identical to Denver city limits, is Colorado’s safest Democratic seat, and the winner of the primary is all but certain to win the general election in November.
Throughout the forum, DeGette, who has represented the 1st District in Congress since 1997, brandished her progressive bona fides, like support for a single-payer healthcare system, and repeatedly invoked the experience she said would make her an effective champion for those priorities if Democrats take back the House of Representatives.
https://coloradonewsline.com/2026/06/20/degette-spars-with-challengers-kiros-james/