June 25, 2026 12:15 PM UTC

Comparing (Big) Apples to Oranges

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: We have new ballot return numbers as of 11:59 pm on Wednesday. A total of 578,570 ballots have been returned in Colorado, and younger voters continue to be holding onto their ballots.

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Left-wing candidates in Colorado are cheering Tuesday’s election results in New York and hoping that the success of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are a preview of what is to come in Colorado five days from now.

As Axios Denver reports:

Progressive candidates in Colorado are hoping the aftershock from the political “earthquake” in New York City will reach Denver next week.

Why it matters: Tuesday’s primary results come as a warning to establishment Democrats in Colorado in the run-up to next week’s primary.

It may be an encouraging signal to local candidates pitching themselves as alternatives to the status quo.

…Supporters of 1st Congressional District hopeful Melat Kiros, the only candidate fully endorsed by Denver DSA, celebrated the New York results.

It’s worth noting that last sentence; Kiros is the only major Colorado candidate who has been formally endorsed by DSA. By contrast, U.S. Senate challenger Julie Gonzales has repeatedly renounced her DSA membership but her campaign is still “recommended” by the Denver DSA chapter.

Gonzales, meanwhile, is misunderstanding a small ad buy from a Republican as a sign of strength:

U.S. Senate candidate Julie Gonzales says that if establishment Democrats aren’t taking progressives seriously, Republicans sure are: Her GOP opponent, Mark Baisley, has run campaign ads calling her “The Mamdani of Colorado.”

Baisley is calling Gonzales “The Mamdani of Colorado” in an effort to boost her chances in the Democratic Primary; Baisley and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) would absolutely prefer to run against Gonzales than incumbent Sen. John Hickenlooper in the fall.

Could New York’s election results presage a similar shock in Colorado? Maybe…but this feels like more of a (big) apples to oranges comparison.

The Internet is Not Real Life (Yet)

Social media may be buzzing about left-wing challengers, but are voters? As we’ve been pointing out all week, ballot returns in Colorado show that younger voters (18-34) simply aren’t voting in significant numbers. The DSA base is largely made up of younger voters; while Gonzales told Axios Denver that Coloradans are “hungry for and excited about” voting for progressives, thus far ballot returns have yet to indicate such enthusiasm. The latest numbers from the Colorado Secretary of State show that 505,538 ballots have been returned in Colorado…and 72% of those voters are over the age of 55.

Thus far, younger voters do not appear to be participating in Colorado’s Primary Election in greater numbers than in the 2024 Primary Election, when only 8% of the 18-34 age group turned out to vote. In Denver, where Melat Kiros is trying to unseat longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette, ballot returns lag behind Jefferson and El Paso counties — neither of which feature high-profile Primary Election contests. There’s still time for this to change, but the clock is ticking.

Colorado Has no Mamdani

As Axios Denver notes:

Reality check: Colorado isn’t New York. It’s tricky to directly compare the two states.

New York witnessed a monumental left-wing victory when New York City elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani last year. However, progressive candidates have historically struggled in Colorado.

Mamdani became a national name after winning the race for New York City Mayor in 2025. His endorsement obviously carried a lot of weight in key House races in NYC. Left-wing candidates in Colorado don’t have a Mamdani whose endorsement can tip the scales in a Primary Election.

The Left Has Won…and Lost in 2026

Left-wing Democrats have certainly picked up big victories in 2026, but we have not seen a sea change overall. The left has won big in mayoral races, for example, but has had trouble breaking through in statewide contests.

Some of the trends that have benefitted lefty candidates around the country are also less clear in Colorado. As CNN notes:

Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, the political organization founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders, said the left’s success in this year’s primaries represents, in many cases, the culmination of years of support and investment in younger officeholders. “These are not candidates coming out of nowhere — a lot of these candidates have run for down-ballot offices and gained governing experience and are graduating up,” he said. “You are seeing the maturation of the progressive movement.”

Melat Kiros does not fit this description, having only moved back to Colorado two years ago. Nor does Kiros’s focus on Israel and Gaza match policy trends elsewhere:

Notably, the progressive candidates are emphasizing economic themes and mostly minimizing their discussion of polarizing social issues. “Candidates are really speaking to people’s material needs and vowing to fight to improve their standard of living,” Geevarghese said.

Liam Kerr, co-founder of Welcome, a group working to support Democratic centristsKerr agreed that a disciplined focus on economic issues — one that more closely echoes the messaging of Sanders’ first presidential run — has been central to the left’s successes this year. Progressive candidates, “are acting differently than they did in 2022,” he said. “They’ve been more like Bernie 2016 than Bernie 2020: high economic populism and low ‘woke.’”

That might be the special sauce for lefties in 2026, but it’s not what Colorado candidates such as Kiros are cooking.

Fundamentals Still Matter

As we pointed out last week, you simply can’t argue that Gonzales has run a professional campaign for the U.S. Senate. Gonzales has raised more than $869,000 for her campaign but has devoted virtually nothing to paid media outreach, instead spending money on overhead, staff, and consultants.

As Vox.com reports in a story about “The Democratic Tea Party”:

Gonzales hasn’t raised very much money or funded a major TV ad campaign — instead, she’s pinning her hopes on organizing. “She’s pushing back against this notion that money matters — it does,” Jesse Paul, a reporter for the Colorado Sun, told me. “Especially in this race when voters don’t know who she is.”

Gonzales was touting a poll back in March showing that Democratic voters would swing toward her candidacy once they learned more about her and her policy positions. Maybe that was true, but Gonzales forgot to do the second part; average voters never learned about her campaign. Lefties often point to Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner as a strong progressive challenger, but Platner became a big name in 2026 because he did the hard work of raising millions of dollars in order to raise his name ID.

Other “recommended” DSA candidates such as David Seligman (Attorney General) and Amanda Gonzalez (Secretary of State) failed to produce the sort of resources required for voter education about their campaigns. Seligman will almost assuredly finish in fourth place in a four-way Primary for AG. Gonzalez’s opponent, Jessie Danielson, also didn’t do all that well on the fundraising front, which makes this race more of a toss-up.

There’s reason for lefty challengers in Colorado to be excited about their chances on Tuesday based on what happened in New York this week, but you really have to squint to make a true comparison. More than anything, if younger voters in Colorado continue to sit on their ballots, none of these vibes are going to matter.