Diana DeGette and the Rise of the DSA in 2026

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)

On Tuesday, Rep. Diana DeGette lost her primary bid for reelection, becoming already the fifth incumbent Democratic House member to lose her reelection bid in a primary to Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros.  This is on top of a near-record 58 incumbents in the House (24 of whom are Democrats) that will be leaving, setting the stage for (should the Democrats win the majority), a very different caucus for Hakeem Jeffries to lead than what he currently runs.  DeGette's loss, though, also opens up a lot of questions about the DSA's growing influence on the Democratic Party...a party they seem to openly despise.

I will start by saying, transparently, I've always really liked Diana DeGette.  Her predecessor in the House was Pat Schroeder, a legendary congresswoman who ran for President in 1988, and is one of my heroes (there's a framed photo of her hanging on my wall in this room), so I will own that part of this is biased in the sense that I am sad about this loss.  DeGette is a deeply reliable Democrat, very much someone you would've historically considered a liberal.  Her record on abortion rights is perfectly pro-choice, she is a strong advocate for gun control, and in particular, is a leading politician on healthcare issues (including Medicare for All).  She is not, as has been labeled on her, a "moderate" in any sense of the word.  Her voting record would be largely indistinguishable from, say, someone like Elizabeth Warren, whom most people feel pretty comfortable saying is a liberal.

DeGette's primary against Melat Kiros is largely predicated on just a few issues, because by-and-large their viewpoints were pretty much identical from a practical standpoint.  The biggest was around Israel.  DeGette's record on Israel has been called "mixed" but it's less mixed and more nuanced.  She has pretty consistently (since the attacks on October 7th) stated that she supports Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas, but has largely refused to vote for standalone bills providing funding to Israel due to the genocide (my word, not hers, which was also a sticking point) in Gaza.  It should be noted that DeGette did vote for a humanitarian bill in April 2024 that provided some funding to Israel as part of a compromise package with the House GOP, as it also provided funding to Gaza, Ukraine, & Taiwan.  173 Democrats voted for this bill, while 37 (and 21 Republicans) voted no (to match the comparison above, Elizabeth Warren also voted for this bill, as did noted Senate liberals like Tina Smith & Tammy Baldwin).

This was, by-and-large the only major issue that the two disagreed upon in the primary, and much was made over the fact that Kiros was considerably younger than DeGette (Kiros was born the year that DeGette entered Congress), but I will note that these DSA challenges oftentimes focus on just a handful of issues: Israel, age, & stylistic approaches to politics.  I will also own that I hate primaries largely based on style, especially in solid blue districts.  I say this as someone who already admitted to having a framed picture of a politician on my wall, but I think that ultimately the best politicians are ones who actually get the job done and I don't need my politicians to be flashy.  I am aware that on occasion you need to invest in a politician that feels like a national candidate, as I have learned from watching Al Gore & John Kerry lose that Americans will rarely pick someone on their merits if they don't want to go to a bar with them, but I don't need flashy politicians to be happy.  I want politicians who actually work in the real world, and do the job of getting their work done.  Like everyone, I approach my life with some complaints, and will complain on occasion (or more if it's the right audience)...but I hate people who are defeatists, and who just talk about their problems without actually fixing them, and so I have a lot of respect for people like a Diana DeGette, someone who has done the work, consistently putting out legislation to try to make the country better, without caring about their following on cable news or social media.

I also think that these primaries tend to gloss over the very real, sometimes glaring, faults of the challenger because they're younger and more exciting (because the media, and many grassroots people are more interested in flashy people, the latter in part because they're so angry and they want to feel seen through their politicians).  Kiros, for example, has made past statements refusing to condemn attacks at a Jewish Community rally in 2025 as being "antisemitic" even though they clearly were.  Combined with her campaigning with Hasan Piker, a noted far left figure with a large following who regularly trades in antisemitic language & conspiracy theories, a lot of the closing arguments were over Kiros not being strong enough on the rising tide of antisemitism in the far left, which you see pop up in things like the attacks on State Sen. Scott Wiener this past month (as well as in October 2024) in public protests that feel less about Wiener being pro-Israel (he's really not, he supports a two-state solution) and more so on Wiener being Jewish, as we see disproportionately large attacks on this issue against Jewish politicians.

Kiros is not the only far-left figure who has taken on an "establishment" (a more accurate if much vaguer term than "moderate" for someone like DeGette) and won while also having a host of controversial statements.  Darializa Chevalier recently beat Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York, despite having said in the past that she doesn't believe in the prison system (even refusing to back prisons for murderers) and has called for the end of all deportation & an open borders policy with immigration even for those accused of crimes in the United States.  And we've spent way too much time on this blog this year talking about the many, many controversies of Abdul El-Sayed and Graham Platner, but know they're definitely an indication of this same wave of candidates.

Unlike El-Sayed or Platner, Kiros & Chevalier are in super blue districts-they are going to win and become congresswomen next year.  But I will own that it saddens me that the Democratic Party, which has a largely strong record of running serious-minded people, ones who are focused on actually making incremental and real improvements in the lives of Americans, are succumbing to challengers who seem less inclined to govern and more inclined to get the most likes on Twitter.  Also, as an historically yellow dog Democrat, it freaks me out to have multiple candidates for Congress I'd struggle to be able to vote for flying under our banner.  Diana DeGette was a good congresswoman, and I say that as a pretty progressive-minded person, one who actually took steps to pass legislation into law, and not just legislate through voice alone.  Kiros & Chevalier seem more like, well, Bernie Sanders-definitely making a principled stand, but one that never seems to go beyond that with little signed bills to their credit.