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- Four conservative school board candidates in a Colorado district have raised more than $300,000.
- All of the candidates running in Douglas County's election on Tuesday are running to unseat incumbents.
- The eye-popping donation totals reflect the contentious election in an area won by Trump in 2020.
A conservative quartet of school board candidates in a Colorado district has raised more than $300,000 ahead of a hotly contested election on Tuesday.
With four school board director seats up for grabs in Douglas County just south of Denver – an area that Donald Trump won by more than seven points over Joe Biden in 2020 – the four conservative candidates have raised nearly $200,000 more than their opposition, according to Colorado campaign financing reports.
According to the campaign financing reports, Mike Peterson pulled in the largest contributions with $99,543.58 raised, followed by Becky Meyers, Christy Williams, and Kaylee Winegar at over $77,000 each.
None of the right-leaning candidates are board members, while two of the other four candidates are incumbents, NBC News reported.
Big donors to Peterson's campaign include R. Stanton Dodge, the chief legal officer for sports betting company DraftKings, and a Colorado real estate executive, Eric Garrett.
The fundraising totals dwarf the contributions raised the last time eight candidates ran for school board in the county in 2017, when the 8 candidates across both slates raised just over $231,000 combined, according to state election data.
Tuesday's election comes on the heels of a heated school board meeting last week that saw one parent accuse the board of being "possessed with the spirit of tyranny" for enacting COVID-19 safety policies.
The supposed teaching of "critical race theory" was also one point of contention during the meeting.
A national group supporting the conservative slate of candidates, the 1776 Project PAC, states on its website that it actively opposes the teaching of "critical race theory" in class.
Earlier last week, a federal judge sided with the district to continue to enforce mask mandates in schools, according to local news station CBS4 last week.
Tuesday's election comes during a time of increased tension at meetings across the country, as the once-mundane community events have turned into battlegrounds where social and cultural wars are fought.
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