DENVER, Colo. — Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros is projected to win the election to the U.S. House, where she will represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District.
With this win, Kiros will become the first Black woman and first member of Gen Z to represent Colorado in Congress.
Watch Denver7's coverage of this race call in the video below:
Earlier this year, Kiros defeated longtime Congresswoman Diana DeGette in the Democratic Primary to become the party’s nominee for the district.
Kiros has made headlines for her views on the war in Gaza and the Boulder firebomb attack, prompting unaffiliated candidate Shimon Blau to enter the race after the primary election.
During a Denver7 interview a few weeks before the election, Kiros shared her plans for achieving her policy goals, despite DSA members being labeled “political outsiders” with the Democratic Party.
“It’s such an important question, right? Because we have a responsibility not just to make a bunch of noise; we have to actually get things done,” Kiros said. “The problem that we have is a system that has concentrated wealth at the top, that has allowed the wealthy and the powerful to inject tens of millions of dollars, in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars, to buy up politicians like they're buying a cup of coffee."
She continued, "That kind of system is never going to reflect the will of where the people are at, and so our responsibility is to demonstrate to our future colleagues that not only is it the democratic thing to do to get something like Medicare for All passed, which has support of two thirds of Americans and a supermajority of support among Democratic voters. It is also the pragmatic thing to do, if we want to beat back fascism.”
While Kiros said she looks forward to working with fellow Democrats on impactful policies, during the same interview, Kiros said she was not ready to commit to supporting Hakeem Jeffries as the Speaker of the House, if Democrats take control of the chamber.
Kiros and other members of Congress are scheduled to be sworn in on January 3rd, 2027.
