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Reflections on Colorado's Primary Results
In looking for candidates to fight Trump, Colorado voters chose a democratic socialist.
by Ari Armstrong, Copyright © 2026
Yes, Colorado is poised to send a self-professed "democratic socialist" to Congress. Yes, many Democrats call themselves "socialists" even though socialist regimes in the last century slaughtered scores of millions of people.
Kiros: An Anti-Israel Socialist
However, Melat Kiros's victory over Diana DeGette, one of the biggest upsets in Colorado history, was not only about ideology, maybe not even mainly about ideology. Candidate Kiros is young, smart, articulate, attractive, and energetic. She's the AOC of the West. DeGette, on the other hand, seemed old, boring, and bored. She couldn't even be bothered to appear on 9News toward the end to pitch her case.
Donald Trump dominates the political scene, and generally voters, especially in Colorado, are unhappy with Trump. Voters wanted a fighter, and Kiros looked ready for a fight.
At least in terms of domestic policy, the differences between Kiros and DeGette are minor. For example, like Kiros, DeGette promoted a "Medicare for All single payer healthcare system."
The big difference is in the candidates' stance toward Israel. In her victory speech, Kiros again accused Israel of committing "genocide" against Palestinians. She has suggested that the Israeli government be ended, that Israeli policies caused the Hamas terrorist attack against Israeli citizens, and that U.S. policies caused the al-Qaeda terrorist attack against the U.S. on 9/11. She also declined to call the firebombing of Jews in Boulder an act of antisemitism.
Weiser Upsets Bennet's Cart
How will Phil Weiser, born to a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust and poised to become Colorado's second Jewish governor (after Jared Polis), campaign with (or at least alongside) Kiros, who cannot bring herself to recognize obvious antisemitic terrorism?
Weiser won, not so much over ideological differences with Michael Bennet, but because, again, voters wanted someone ready to stand up to Trump. As Attorney General, Weiser bragged that he sued Trump 67 times.
Meanwhile, New York's Michael Bloomberg dumped millions of dollars into Bennet's coffers. To a large degree, Colorado voters stiffen at the implication that they can be bought.
Kirkmeyer Takes a Precarious Lead
As of Wednesday morning, Barbara Kirkmeyer maintained a precarious lead over the exorcist Victor Marx. The good news is that over 186,000 Republican-primary voters saw sense. The bad news it that over 280,000 Republican-primary voters picked either Marx or Scott Bottoms, who has cozied up to the violence-promoting antisemite Joe Oltmann and who has spread crazy conspiracy theories about child trafficking at the state Capitol.
But let's keep this in context. As I have pointed out, Colorado's party primary system is stupid and wrong. In a unified, party-free primary with approval voting (or even ranked choice voting), there is no way a clown such as Marx would have had a chance to move to the general election. The losing candidate in the Democratic primary, Bennet, got around 78% more votes than Kirkmeyer. Of course, in the system I propose, Kirkmeyer might not have made the cut either.
Griswold Wins Decisively
Jena Griswold did even better than I expected, taking around 45% of the Democratic-primary vote. However, in the primary system I favor, she probably would have ended up in a general election race against fellow Democrat Michael Dougherty, which would have given Dougherty time to make his case to general-election voters. That would have been a much better outcome, especially given that Dougherty is competent for the job and Griswold is not. But, again, Dems wanted a fighter, and that's the reputation Griswold has built for herself, however superficially.
Money in Politics
A major campaign theme of Democrats is that we need to suppress speech get "money out of politics." Remember that the Supreme Court case Citizens United was about whether the federal government could suppress a film about Hillary Clinton.
A central message of the Colorado primaries is that money only goes so far, and underfunded candidates often beat heavily-funded candidates. Kiros beat DeGette. Weiser beat Bennet. Kirkmeyer (probably) beat Marx (or at least competed) despite a huge fundraising disadvantage.
Then there's this line from Jesse Paul: "State super PACs funded by dark money spent millions trying to help more moderate candidates beat their more liberal challengers in Colorado's Democratic statehouse primaries but were mostly coming up short Tuesday."
And yet we saw State Rep. Javier Mabrey go on 9News to complain about money in politics. We saw Kiros in her victory speech promise to get money out of politics. Like Marx, such Democrats need their demons to slay.
The political landscape can change quickly. At this point, however, it looks like Colorado is about to take another serious lurch left. Next year at the Capitol should be "interesting" for those of us who care about free markets and individual liberty.