Weiser’s victory, though, doesn’t align easily with the narrative that many on the left are championing during this year’s primaries: that indignant Democrats are dumping do-nothing corporate centrists in favor of younger progressives and, in some cases, Bernie-inspired democratic socialists. “The left is trying to claim certain victories, but this race defies easy narrative,” one consultant who worked on Weiser’s race told me. “Phil is a sober-minded, normal progressive who is a relentless worker and ran an excellent campaign on every measure against a candidate who got in late and had no message. He went after Bennet on an important question: What have you been doing in Washington, rather than just being in Washington?”

Across the state on Tuesday, in primaries shaped by different issues and personalities, voters in Colorado were sending a larger message to the Democratic Party that transcended the usual left-vs.-center fights that have divided the party in past years. They’re angry, they want fighters, and they want change.

The candidates who grab that mantle—D.S.A., normie Dem, anyone with a pulse and a canvassing packet who seems fresh—are suddenly the odds-on favorites. “I hear from Democrats in Colorado who are fed up with half-measures and excuses for why Democrats haven’t delivered on their promises,” said Kyle Clark, the veteran Denver political journalist and anchor at KUSA. “If they’re going to lose, they want someone who will go down swinging. They don’t want to hear why this or that policy isn’t achievable. They don’t want to have to ride their elected leaders like a rented mule. They want proven fighters they know will go hard without being prodded to do it. It’s not about ideology for many voters I talk to. It’s about demanding action and results.”

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Rocky Mountain High Stakes

Much of the national attention on Colorado this week had focused on the 1st congressional district in Denver, where the D.S.A./Justice Dem/Bernie-backed Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old former Sidley Austin associate who was canned from the firm in 2023 after publishing an open letter attacking Israel, had been surging against 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette in the deep blue Denver-area seat. After New York’s stunning primaries last week—in which three Zohran Mamdani–backed leftists claimed victory in House primaries against Hakeem Jeffries–backed Democrats—the race was a test of socialist organizing power beyond Brooklyn and Queens.

Kiros delivered—outhustling DeGette with youthful passion, support from outside progressive groups, and a consistent message on affordability and blocking arms shipments to Israel. Her victory proved, once again, that the D.S.A. left has fully arrived as a viable alternative to traditional Dem politics—at least in the nation’s bluer House districts, especially ones populated by younger people who rent—a trend to watch with competitive primaries on the horizon in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Massachusetts. The emboldened populist left will now have another attention-grabbing voice in Congress next year. Notably, Kiros is vowing not to support Jeffries for leader. After she won, Darializa Avila Chevalier, the lightning-rod socialist who won her primary in New York’s 13th district last week, tweeted: “DC ISN’T READY FOR WHAT’S COMING!!”

Like Chevalier, who won against aging and out-of-touch incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Kiros seized momentum simply by jumping into the race without asking permission, giving frustrated voters an outlet at just the right time. DeGette—elected in 1996—hadn’t done much to cultivate her reputation in the district for years despite reaching the higher ranks of House leadership in Washington. While other ambitious Dems in Denver were just waiting for DeGette to retire, Kiros announced her campaign and got there first.

Said the consultant who worked on Weiser’s race: “You have to be fighting and you have to be super attentive. Most of the old people who have been getting knocked off in their races just realized too late that they had a problem.” DeGette was one of them. So was Bennet. But Bennet’s colleague in the Senate, John Hickenlooper, worked his primary hard despite being 74 years old and facing a younger challenger to his left. Hickenlooper—a former Denver mayor and brewpub owner with a knack for retail—never assumed his race was a gimme and was frequently spotted mingling with voters on the campaign trail. Hickenlooper is now on pace to win by more than 10 points.

After Kiros won, she told reporters that DeGette’s growing distance from her own district—real or imagined—was a huge factor in the race. “It shows that that seat was taken for granted. It shows that there was some complacency there,” Kiros said. “In a moment right now when everything is in crisis, we deserve to have someone who is paying attention, who is steady at the wheel and is actually fighting for the people.”

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Colorado’s & Coloradon’ts

In Colorado’s primaries, identifying with the far left wasn’t a prerequisite for victory. Being seen as a fighter was. In the attorney general’s race, Jena Griswold—the state secretary of state and a vocal opponent of Trump’s assault on voting rights—won her primary against multiple opponents, including a workers’ rights attorney who allied himself with Sanders and ran against oligarchy and corporate power.

In the Democratic race in Colorado’s 8th district—one of the most competitive swing seats in the country—voters also showed they were hungry for change and new energy, no D.S.A. membership card required. The nominee, a young Latino state legislator named Manny Rutinel, won not by running to the left but by aggressively pivoting to the center throughout his campaign, abandoning past support for Medicare for All and opposition to fracking. He has even denounced his own veganism. The 8th district, which runs north of Denver, has a robust agricultural base. Rutinel, though, was once a PETA activist who said that “animal agriculture is a horrific, exploitative industry.” But now he’s pro-meat. During the campaign, in a KUSA debate hosted by Clark, Rutinel said, “It’s important for me to be able to enjoy the delicious products that Colorado ranchers make.”

The flip-flops may be chum in a battleground seat against vulnerable Republican incumbent Gabe Evans. But for Democratic voters in a heavily Latino district, Rutinel ably positioned himself as the anti-Trump candidate, seizing on votes taken in the state legislature by his opponent, avowed moderate Shannon Bird, that were seen as capitulating to ICE. The 31-year-old Rutinel also embraced straight-to-camera vertical video to get his message out on social media. Maybe he was a young man in a hurry, but it didn’t matter. He defeated Bird with ease.

Rutinel also happens to be an alumnus of Run for Something, the Democratic group founded by Amanda Litman that recruits and trains young progressives to run for office up and down the ballot. When I asked Litman what Colorado’s results signaled on Tuesday, she told me that “the old guard of the Democratic Party, both literally and figuratively, doesn’t seem to realize how angry voters are with the status quo—and in particular, doesn’t realize that the ‘status quo’ includes them.” Litman told me that insurgent wins across the country aren’t just about ideology, though certain issues can read as a proxy for bold leadership or pugilism against incumbent-style incrementalism. “It’s about whether or not voters see our leaders as having the stomach and skills to fight, and the willingness to offer an answer for what might be possible if things didn’t suck,” Litman said. “Some of that is ideology, some of that is age, some of that is style—all of it is fueled by the same feelings of rage and betrayal.”