Melat Kiros was 11 months old when her parents brought her to Denver from Ethiopia. On Tuesday night, at 29, she won the city’s seat in Congress with about 78% of the vote.
With roughly 71% of ballots counted, Kiros, a Democrat, held 78% in Colorado’s 1st District, against 14% for Republican Christy Peterson and 6% for unaffiliated candidate Shimon Blau, when the Associated Press called the race. She is the first Black woman Colorado has ever sent to Congress and the state’s first member of Generation Z. NPR reports she is also the first Gen Z woman elected to the House, joining Florida’s Maxwell Frost as the second Gen Z member of Congress.
“My parents came to Denver from Ethiopia in 1998 on a diversity visa lottery. I was 11 months old,” Kiros said, according to the Durango Herald. Her parents worked multiple jobs while her father studied pharmacy at the University of Colorado Denver.
She got here by beating a 30-year incumbent. In the June primary, Kiros, a lawyer and doctoral student who had never held office, defeated Rep. Diana DeGette, who had held the seat since 1997. “Denver voters of all ages, of all races, of all religions sent a clear message: we will not wait,” she said that night. With DeGette gone, this is the first new representative for the district in three decades.
Kiros ran with the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America. She campaigned for Medicare for All and universal child care, called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and wants to end U.S. military aid to Israel. She refused corporate PAC money.
Her campaign was not free of controversy. Blau entered the general election late, partly because Kiros declined to describe last year’s firebombing of a Jewish community event in Boulder as antisemitic, the Herald reported. Voters in the district returned a verdict on that argument Tuesday. Kiros has also declined to commit to backing Hakeem Jeffries for speaker if Democrats win the House, and told KKTV: “We have a responsibility not just to make a bunch of noise; we have to actually get things done.”
Her win matters beyond Denver. Colorado had never sent a Black woman to Washington. In January it sends the Ethiopian-born daughter of two diversity visa winners, a family the immigration debate usually discusses and rarely hears from. Black immigrants and their children now have a vote on the laws written about them.
Kiros will be sworn in with the rest of the new Congress on Jan. 3, 2027.
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