March 30, 2026 05:06 PM UTC

Assemblies Are Fun, But Elections Are What Matter

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• by: Colorado Pols

Colorado Democrats wrapped up their assembly process on Saturday in Pueblo, sorting out the primary election ballot order for statewide races and, in some cases ending campaigns that didn’t garner enough support and had not ensured their spot via petition. Making the biggest news from the Democratic assembly process was the contest in CD-1 the night before between longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-supported challenger Melat Kiros, in which Kiros traded on generalized anti-incumbent sentiment among delegates and unsuccessfully attempted to force DeGette off the ballot entirely. Although many incumbent candidates chose the petition route to safeguard primary ballot access, DeGette’s trust in the party faithful created a vulnerability that Kiros and her hard-left supporters were keen to exploit.

But as Jesse Paul reports for the Colorado Sun, anybody who’s been doing Colorado politics for more than one election cycle knows that while the assembly process is useful for raising the profile of grassroots candidates, it is historically not an accurate predictor of success in the subsequent primary election:

While the assembly vote likely marks the closest DeGette has come to losing her seat in the decades she’s been in Congress, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s at risk of losing her seat in the June 30 primary.

First off, the delegate vote is not representative of the broader electorate.

There are about 465,000 voters eligible to cast ballots in the Democratic primary in the 1st District this year. There were 235 delegates participating in the 1st Congressional District Democratic assembly Friday night.

And crucially, as we’ve noted previously:

Only Democratic voters can participate in the caucus and assembly process, whereas Democrats and unaffiliated voters can vote in the party’s primaries. As of March 1, there were about 280,000 active, registered unaffiliated voters in the district and roughly 185,000 Democratic voters. [Pols emphasis]

The momentary drama over DeGette making the ballot is due entirely to her failure to submit petitions to guarantee access to the ballot. This oversight gave Kiros a chance to knock DeGette out of office on the strength of literally dozens of votes instead of thousands, and the opportunity to do so appears to have motivated the whole DSA insurgent attempt to make a statement disproportionate to their numbers. It was only quick organizing after the threat became apparent that shored up DeGette’s required 30% support, and averted what could be considered a highly undemocratic, though obviously newsworthy outcome.

Now that the attempt to knock DeGette out of the race in the assembly has failed, though, her primary victory on June 30th is all but assured based on her superior name ID and campaign resources–in other words, the fundamentals that apply in every modern election. This prediction is consistent with historic results, in which assembly victory has proven at best incidentally predictive of primary success, and at worst exposing a disconnect between indoctrinated political activists and regular voters.

The advice to take assembly results as interesting but not predictive extends from this race, where a unique opportunity led to a near-upset, to others like the U.S. Senate primary, where underdog Julie Gonzales dominated a process in which the frontrunner incumbent Sen. John Hickenlooper was absent. The absence of this marquee matchup from the assembly slate may have in turn contributed to Kiros’ overperformance in CD-1. While the assembly is a good way for candidates to get on the ballot through retail politics, it’s not a substitute for the large-scale voter outreach necessary to win an election. The moderating effect of unaffiliated voters in Colorado primaries makes it even more important to cultivate support beyond core party activists.

Candidates on the wrong side of these established precedents don’t like hearing them. All we can say is that on June 30th, they’ll have the opportunity to set new precedents.

Until then, we’re obliged to call them as our decades of experience see them.