Meet Melat Kiros, the 29-Year-Old Bringing Gen Z Politics to Congress

In 2023, Melat Kiros was fired. She was 26 and worked at a major New York law firm, but she refused to condemn an open letter addressed to dozens of law firms that had urged law school deans to crack down on antisemitism on university campuses, at a time when students were protesting the slaughter in Gaza. Kiros condemned antisemitism, but warned law firms, including the one she worked for, against confusing “bigotry with the geopolitical question of Israel’s legitimacy.” This cost her her job.She, however, was not discouraged, as she belongs to a generation that is no longer willing to set aside its values for the sake of a career. “The right to question not only the legitimacy of a government but also its actions is the bedrock principle of a true democracy,” she said of her decision. Since then, Kiros has devoted herself more intensely to politics, and yesterday, in the midterm elections, she won as Colorado’s representative to the House of Representatives. Before her, only one other Gen Z representative, Democrat Maxwell Frost of Florida, had made it to Parliament in 2022, but she became the first Gen Z woman in Congress.Melat Kiros was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but moved to Denver with her family when she was still a baby and grew up there. She graduated from Washington College in Maryland in 2018, where she studied political science and economics, before earning a law degree from the University of Notre Dame in 2022. Today she is a lawyer and is pursuing a doctorate in public policy. In the meantime, however, she also works as a barista. It is not easy to balance a political career with her studies, but it is worth it.After being fired, Kiros returned to Colorado and, in 2024, joined the election campaign of Democratic congressional candidate John Padora as communications director. It was excellent training for her, so much so that, two years later, she decided to run for Congress herself. On her side, she has strong political positions—she supports universal health care and child care, but also more politically controversial issues, such as abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and ending U.S. military aid to Israel. Her ideals openly align with her actions, and in fact during the election campaign she refused funding from corporate PACs and pro-Israel groups, while also sharply criticizing her Democratic primary opponent Diana DeGette, who had instead accepted donations from defense contractors as well as energy and pharmaceutical companies.Michael Ciaglo//Getty ImagesIt is clear that Kiros's mark is different: She shows us what Gen Z can and will be able to do when it is given space. In this sense, her election also fits well into the climate of student protests, in Europe and around the world, by a generation that wants to make its voice heard. Yet it is still not easy: According to research by Future Caucus, more than 100 Generation Z candidates ran in the 2026 midterm elections for Congress, but the study found that young candidates were less likely to make it to the general election than other age groups, with only 24 of them appearing on the November ballots.Kiros also had to face paternalism and dismissive attitudes from those who considered her unsuitable and inexperienced. “Now is not the time to gamble and send somebody with no experience to Washington,” DeGette had said during the primaries. Kiros, however, turned it into a strength, centering her congressional candidacy precisely on the theme of generational change. She emphasized socialist issues dear to younger people, such as affordability, social policies, climate change, countering the influence of multinational corporations, and support for students, families, and workers.Tom Cooper//Getty Images“People, I think, were really eager to see someone who is younger, who has lived experience with the economy that we're living through right now, the climate crisis that we are going to have to deal with the consequences of,” she said in an interview. For her, “socialism is about making it clear that we have basic needs for every single human being,” and she has promised to fight for this.She also knows she has a lot to learn, but that does not stop her from walking through the doors of Congress with her head held high, without being overly intimidated by traditions and alliances. “Young people understand that we are in the fight of our lives,” she said. “We need to have leaders that are going to be fighting for the kind of bold policies that actually get something done, and they’re refusing to settle or wait for our turn or ask for permission.”Born in Padua, I live between London and Milan. After graduating in Law, I specialized in Gender Studies with a Master in Women's Studies in the United Kingdom. Today I write about current affairs, costume and pop culture, focusing in particular on issues related to feminism, gender issues and civil rights.