6 westword.com WESTWORD AUGUST 14-20, 2025 | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Young Blood MEET THE GEN Z CANDIDATES CHALLENGING COLORADO’S LONGEST- SERVING MEMBER OF CONGRESS. BY HANNAH METZGER Diana DeGette was fi rst elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996 — before either of her primary challengers were born. DeGette, now 68, is the longest-serving member of Colorado’s current congressional delegation. She will have represented the state’s First Congressional District in Denver for thirty years across fi fteen terms by the time her term ends in January 2027. That’s the lengthiest run in the U.S. House for any Coloradan since Edward T. Taylor, who died in offi ce in 1941 after serving 32 years. DeGette is seeking her sixteenth term in 2026. But two political newcomers are hoping to end her record-breaking reign: 28-year-old Melat Kiros and 27-year-old Carter Hanson are running against DeGette in the Democratic Party primary. “This isn’t about age. It’s about ability and it’s about priorities,” Kiros says. “When it comes to folks who have been in Congress for decades...they have become so disconnected from what it is like to be an ordinary person who doesn’t have that kind of power, and what it means to operate in this economy today.” The young Democrats lack DeGette’s po- litical experience — neither Kiros nor Hanson have ever run for elected offi ce before — but they argue that their lived experience is more valuable. The challengers describe DeGette as out of touch with normal Denver citizens as a result of spending the equivalent of their entire lifetimes working in Washington, D.C. In addition to facing modern cost-of-living and workforce challenges, both Kiros and Hanson have been personally impacted by national political issues. Kiros was fi red from her job as an attorney after writing in support of local pro-Palestine student protesters. Han- son’s research into wastewater surveillance was defunded as part of President Donald Trump’s government effi ciency initiative. “People want someone who they can understand on an intrinsic level, who has experienced those same issues personally and not just heard about them,” Hanson says. “These issues affect the outcomes of our lives in a big way. Frankly, we cannot wait and hope the older generations will watch out for us. We have to watch out for ourselves.” The candidacies are part of a national wave of Democrats from Generation Z push- ing to unseat party elders after Republicans seized control of the presidency and Con- gress in 2024. Some young Democrats believe replacing longtime incumbents with new candidates will re-energize voters. They’re encouraged by the recent success of politi- cians like Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist who won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor over former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, age 67. This comes as the idea of establishing congressional term limits grows increasingly popular. A whopping 87 percent of adults favor limiting the number of terms Congress members can serve, with the support steady among Democrats and Republicans alike, according to a Pew Research Center report from September 2023. DeGette has faced primary challengers several times over the decades, repeatedly emerging victorious by wide margins. How- ever, pressure against her is ramping up this time around. Four Democrats have fi led to run against DeGette in 2026 (the two others, Olivia Miller and Tiffany Rodgers, have since dropped out). And a July column written by a self-proclaimed “longtime friend” of DeGette urged the congresswoman to retire and “hand off the baton.” DeGette argues that it is unfair to ask someone to step down “simply because you’ve been there for a while,” she said dur- ing a press roundtable on August 7. “What I think you need to have in Con- gress is a combination of experience and fresh blood. ...I know the parliamentary procedure on how to put up the fi ght,” De- Gette says, adding that she has colleagues on both sides of the aisle who “probably should have retired a long time ago,” and others who “are really working hard and fi ghting hard.” While DeGette is the most senior member of Colorado’s congressional delegation, she is not even close to having the longest congressional tenure nationwide. Ten sitting members have been in Congress for more than forty years, in- cluding 91-year-old U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who has retained offi ce for fi fty years. Still, DeGette says she is open to the challenge. “I believe that I should be required to go out to the voters and make the case for why they should hire me every two years,” DeGette says. “If somebody wants to run against me, they should make their case.” Melat Kiros Kiros, 28, is an attorney, Ph.D. student and barista running on a platform of reducing the infl uence of money in politics. She views billion- aires and corporate lobbyists as the primary forces preventing federal initiatives that she sup- ports, including making housing affordable, providing universal health care and increasing the minimum wage. To remove big money from politics, she says four changes are necessary: Ban members of Congress from lobbying after leaving offi ce, ban members of Congress and their immediate family from trading stocks while in offi ce, establish eighteen-year term limits for members of Con- gress, and tax campaign con- tributions from super PACs to create a public-fi nancing fund for congressional candidates. “This is really about making a fundamental change in our economy and in our government to ensure that we take back that power that belongs with the people, because right now it’s been taken by money,” Kiros says. “My priorities are on long-term sustainable policies that make an impact that can be felt and seen by everyday people in their daily lives.” Kiros believes the Democratic Party un- derperformed in the 2024 election because members positioned themselves only as fi ghting against Trump and the Republican Party, rather than fi ghting for working people and a future that voters want to see. “Saying ‘we’re better than the other guys’ is just not enough. It’s not enough when people are unable to afford their housing, their health insurance, their student loan debt,” Kiros says. “We need more people in the party who are going to be addressing the heart of those issues, which is the infl uence of money in politics. ...We don’t have time for measured and reasonable solutions. We have to go big and we have to fi ght for a country and a future that we deserve.” Kiros was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and came to Denver with her family as an infant. They later moved to Aurora, where Kiros attended Sky Vista Middle School and Eaglecrest High School. She studied politi- cal science and economics at Washington College, and earned a law degree from the University of Notre Dame in 2022. After graduation, Kiros worked as an at- torney at a New York law fi rm, doing securi- ties regulation work. Kiros says she originally intended to go into public service, but a series of political disappointments left her feeling “confused and jaded.” She notes the election of Trump in 2016 and Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court as moments that showed her the political system is “not working in favor of ordinary people” and the two parties are not “playing by the same rules.” “Honestly, I just gave up,” Kiros says. “I didn’t think there was anything that I could do individually, or that Democrats were go- ing to do, to change things in favor of working people again. So I decided to go into big law. I wanted to make whatever money I could to pay off my loans, take care of my family and just call it a day.” Then came the Hamas attacks against Israel in October 2023, and the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. After pro-Palestinian protests exploded across American col- NEWS continued on page 8 KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS From left to right: Melat Kiros, Congresswoman Diana DeGette and Carter Hanson — the Democratic candidates for Colorado’s First Congressional District. COURTESY PHOTOS “We have to build a new system, new policies, bolder legislation that protect the dignity of people as our society shifts,” Melat Kiros says. COURTESY MELAT KIROS
