Colorado Democrats delivered a sharp rebuke to Washington’s political establishment Tuesday, with primary voters choosing outsider candidates over entrenched congressional figures in a series of stunning upsets.
Attorney General Phil Weiser defeated sitting U.S. Senator Michael Bennet for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, winning by a decisive margin of 55% to 45% in a race that few predicted would be so lopsided.
Weiser, who ran explicitly against establishment politics, framed his victory as a mandate from ordinary citizens rather than party insiders, declaring in his victory speech: “We the people, not establishment politics, choose our leaders.”
The results sent an unmistakable signal that progressive challengers, energized by younger voters hungry for new leadership, are no longer simply protest candidates within Colorado’s Democratic Party.
Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old doctoral student and former corporate lawyer making her first bid for elected office, unseated U.S. Representative Diana DeGette in Denver’s 1st Congressional District, toppling one of the longest-serving members of Congress in Colorado history.
Kiros ran on an aggressively progressive platform centered on affordability, universal health care, and opposition to American support for Israel, and she will become Colorado’s first Democratic socialist sent to Washington.
Her victory marked only the second time in more than 50 years that an incumbent Colorado member of Congress lost a primary reelection bid, underscoring just how extraordinary Tuesday’s results were.
Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie acknowledged the scale of the anti-establishment wave, telling Axios: “There is an undercurrent that we don’t recognize, the pain and the anger that people are feeling, and they’ve taken it out on the establishment.”
Turnout among younger voters proved to be a decisive factor, with early figures showing that voters between the ages of 18 and 34 cast ballots at rates that surpassed or matched older age groups.
Republicans moved quickly to exploit the Democratic Party’s leftward lurch, with U.S. Representative Gabe Evans wasting no time in linking Kiros to the Democrat he will face in his own November race, state Representative Manny Rutinel.
Evans represents Colorado’s most competitive congressional district, making the association between Kiros’s socialist platform and other Democratic candidates a potentially potent line of attack heading into the general election.
The defeats of Bennet and DeGette reflect a broader pattern of voter frustration directed at congressional Democrats over what many see as an inadequate response to the Trump administration and endemic dysfunction in Washington.
Colorado’s primary results may well serve as an early indicator of how deeply anti-establishment sentiment is running within the Democratic base as the 2026 midterm cycle intensifies across the country.
