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Rep. Diana DeGette<\/span> has had a tough few weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Colorado Democrat is facing her first competitive primary<\/a> in her 30-year House career on Tuesday. After a series of confrontations<\/a> with voters \u2014 including a public meltdown<\/a> in a coffee shop \u2014 an unfavorable poll kept out of public view, and speculation that she called on powerful allies to pressure venues to cancel<\/a> planned participation in a rally for her opponent, a slew of new super PACs swooped in to keep DeGette\u2019s campaign afloat in the final weeks of the race \u2014\u00a0including one funded<\/a> by the pro-Israel lobby.\u00a0<\/p>\n While DeGette has spent<\/a> the campaign\u2019s home stretch defending her record as a progressive, her leading opponent, democratic socialist Melat Kiros, has never been more optimistic.\u00a0<\/p>\n After leftist candidates rode to victory<\/a> in New York last week on a growing wave of anti-incumbent sentiment, Kiros said her campaign saw a major uptick<\/a> in donors and volunteers. A coalition of leftist organizations backing her has run an aggressive field campaign and say they\u2019ve out-organized DeGette, who didn\u2019t take the challenge seriously at first and was almost kicked off the ballot<\/a> in March. In a district full of the kinds of young voters<\/a> who helped socialists win<\/a> last week in New York, Kiros\u2019s backers say a similar coalition could power another socialist challenger to topple the Colorado incumbent on Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the Democratic establishment reveals its contempt for its own voters by lashing out against the candidates their base elected, our candidates keep winning by taking on the corporate interests raising our prices to deliver a positive vision to make life more affordable for working class voters \u2014 from Medicare for All to ending taxpayer-funded genocide,\u201d said Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats, which is backing<\/a> Kiros.<\/p>\n DeGette\u2019s challenge is emblematic of a wake-up call for many Democratic incumbents this midterms cycle, Andrabi said: Even being relatively \u201cprogressive\u201d is no longer enough to fend off<\/a> a challenger from the left, let alone to keep your seat<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cVoters are done watching Democrats take corporate PAC money and then wonder why nobody trusts them to fight,\u201d Kiros said in a statement to The Intercept. \u201cThey are done with representatives who show up six weeks before a primary because a challenger finally scared them into it. The energy that showed up in New York is the same energy that\u2019s showing up in Denver and we are ready for Tuesday night.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Another progressive strategist who works with congressmembers and candidates and requested anonymity in order to speak freely said DeGette\u2019s backers were worried. \u201cAcross multiple districts we\u2019re seeing Dem primary voters unwilling to accept the usual platitudes from incumbents about their work \u2018standing up to Trump\u2019 as sufficient to earn their support,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n \u201cVoters across the spectrum are deeply frustrated with the Democratic Party\u2019s ineffectiveness, and feel like many of these incumbents have been all talk and no action in this term,\u201d they said. \u201cThere is broad anti-establishment sentiment that creates real opportunity for a next-generation challenger like in CO-01.\u201d<\/p>\n The influx of super PAC spending for DeGette in the final days of the race came even as she had painted herself as further to the left. The incumbent has name-dropped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for example, <\/strong>in campaign ads<\/a>, a candidate forum<\/a>, and an interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n And while DeGette has said repeatedly she isn\u2019t backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, pro-DeGette super PAC money came from one of several groups used this cycle by United Democracy Project, the super PAC for AIPAC<\/a>, to back its preferred candidates without publicly getting involved in races. United Democracy Project provided more than a third of the money raised this year by the group behind the ads.<\/p>\n \u201cAIPAC\u2019s desperation to stop the pro-Palestinian movement\u2019s momentum and our candidates bringing this fight forward proves just how much they are losing the Democratic Party,\u201d Andrabi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n DeGette has banked<\/span> her reelection on reminding voters that she\u2019s a progressive. Pointing to her three decades in Congress and a late endorsement<\/a> from her Congressional Progressive Caucus colleague, former chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., DeGette has warned that electing Kiros \u2014 who was born the year after DeGette was first elected and who the incumbent says has no political experience or capital \u2014 comes with risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kiros\u2019s backers are using DeGette\u2019s long record against her. They argue she has little to show for her 15 terms in Congress and say the wave of young voters turning out to oust incumbents and back leftist candidates across the country will work against her.<\/p>\n Throughout her time in Congress, DeGette has expressed her support for all the right marquee progressive priorities. She\u2019s reminded voters that she helped write the Medicare for All bill and is the top Democrat on the committee that could make it a reality, and led fights to protect healthcare, the right to abortion, and the environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n But her critics, including Kiros, say she\u2019s rested on those laurels and done little to leverage her seniority in the Democratic caucus to pass meaningful legislation on those issues \u2014 and that part of her inaction is tied to her donors.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe DeGette team clearly was not in the community talking to voters, because that is the only way they could have missed the energy behind our campaign and the hunger for leadership that is unbought and unafraid,\u201d Kiros said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kiros and others have pointed to DeGette\u2019s longtime support from the pharmaceutical industry<\/a>, one of Medicare for All\u2019s greatest foes, as a major reason she\u2019s allowed the legislation to languish. DeGette has promised voters that if they reelect her and Democrats win the House this year, she\u2019ll finally<\/a> take over the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health, where she has served as ranking member since January 2025 and been a member since 2017<\/a>, and bring the bill<\/a> up for a vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n