Shimon Blau, a Denver doctor who said he was “saddened and alarmed” by the victory of Democrat Melat Kiros in last month’s 1st Congressional District primary, has qualified for the November ballot as an independent candidate.
Blau submitted 2,212 petition signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office on July 9 to run as an unaffiliated candidate. Election officials said Friday afternoon that 1,918 of those signatures were from valid registered voters in the district, above the 1,500-signature threshold to make the ballot.
Blau, who is Jewish, wrote on Facebook earlier this month that he was “particularly concerned by what I view as Ms. Kiros’s anti-Semitic rhetoric and her refusal to meet with leaders of Denver’s Jewish community to address their concerns.”
Blau has since set his Facebook settings to private. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday afternoon.
Kiros, a democratic socialist who defeated 15-term U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in a stunning upset in the June 30 Democratic primary, has been criticized for comments she made about 9/11, Israel’s legitimacy as a nation, and the deadly firebombing attack on Jews and others demonstrating in Boulder last year — an act she refused to call antisemitic.
Read the full story from our media partners at the Denver Post here.
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