The blue wave that swept across the U.S. on Election Day was a boon for Colorado’s teacher unions, which saw their candidates sweep school board elections across the state.
The unions not only foiled the plans of so-called reformers to flip control of the Denver school board, but they also saw their candidates clinch seats — and, in some cases, win board majorities — in conservative districts, such as in Douglas County and Grand Junction.
The unions’ wins were partly due to low turnout during an off-year election, but the results also offer a rebuke to the Republican Party’s culture wars that have played out in schools in recent years, according to political observers, who said families may be tiring of book bans and fights over curriculum and gender-neutral bathrooms.
Tuesday’s results “may be a backwash from the incredible conservative school movement that got started during the pandemic,” said pollster Floyd Ciruli. “…(If) leadership in Washington doesn’t read it correctly, it’s going to be a very bad 2026 for them.”
Teacher unions’ success came as Democrats also won governor races in Virginia and New Jersey and as Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won his race for New York City mayor.
Statewide, more than 80% of the school board candidates endorsed by the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teacher union, won election.
As they did in Denver, union-backed candidates swept all four board seats in Aurora Public Schools. They also took two board seats in both Jeffco Public Schools and the Cherry Creek School District.
Union-backed candidates didn’t just win school board seats in metro Denver, but also in Cortez and Grand Junction, where CEA President Kevin Vick said in a statement there were “far-right efforts to take control” of the school districts.
Tuesday’s results, he said in an interview, show that people are tired of “extremist political attacks” on public schools and educators.
“They’re tired of the upheaval that it causes in our schools and in our communities,” Vick said. “…People really just expressed a general exhaustion and rejection of that kind of candidate in our school board races.”
Independent expenditure committees funded by the CEA spent more than $1.2 million on advertising to support school board candidates across the state, including in Denver and Jefferson counties.
“It shows the power… of a union being able to come in and fund a lot of the mailers and voter outreach,” said Matt Smith, one of the more conservative-leaning candidates in the Douglas County School Board race.
Smith, along with three others who made up the Common Sense DCSD, lost to union-backed candidates on Tuesday.
He disagreed with the notion that the election results show the tide is changing for the conservative education movement, including in Douglas County, where the school board has made controversial decisions, such as firing the former superintendent, in recent years.
“Some of the national politics, with the shutdown, could have affected this election,” Smith said. “…’No boys in girls sports’ is still a strong message across political boundaries. It’s definitely a winning message. It’s just getting it in front of voters.”
The CEA’s statewide spending paled in comparison to the money that poured into the Denver Public Schools’ election alone.
Nearly $2 million was spent in the DPS races by both teacher unions and groups that support school reform, such as charter schools and school choice.
In Denver, all four of the teacher union’s candidates won despite Denver Families Action, a political group with charter school ties, spending more than $1 million to flip the board from the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. The union has controlled the board since 2019.
“The other folks misread what was going on and they got killed,” said Van Schoales, senior policy director at the Keystone Policy Center, a nonprofit that conducts education research. “If you’re a hardcore Democrat that’s angry about all that is going on in this country and you support unions, who are you going to vote for? Union candidates.”
All four union-backed candidates — Amy Klein Molk, Xóchitl Gaytán, DJ Torres and Monica Hunter — won their races by wide margins.
Denver Families’ candidates didn’t differentiate themselves enough from the union candidates to stand out to voters, Schoales said.
“The natural base for the DCTA candidates came out and voted and it’s unclear who the natural base is for the reform candidates when they didn’t make a clear case for what they needed to reform,” he said.
Union-backed candidates took all four seats in the Douglas County School District, which just four years ago saw a slate of conservative candidates take the helm on the promise of ending mask mandates and the district’s equity policy.
Voters in Douglas County elected four candidates from the Community’s Voice, Community’s Choice slate over the more conservative-leaning candidates.
More broadly, Douglas County’s elections may be on the “cutting edge” of the shift away from the conservative school movement, Ciruli said, noting voters’ rejection of a home-rule measure earlier this year.
“Their elections for partisan office are less overwhelming in recent years,” he said. “Their margins have been getting more and more narrow.”
Smith said Tuesday’s results were “catastrophic” for the Douglas County School District. “There’s no diverse viewpoints up there anymore,” he said.
“This is the most progressive or liberal board elected,” Smith added. “It was a pretty close election. As a county, we’re pretty split down here. It really comes down to these off-year elections.”
The Douglas County candidates — Kyrzia Parker, Tony Ryan, Clark Callahan and Kelly Denzler — don’t support book bans, have received approval from Planned Parenthood and believe in letting schools determine where transgender girls can use the bathroom, according to their website.
“This group of school board members will put students first and keep politics out of decision-making,” said Fiona Boomer, executive director of AFT Colorado, a teacher union. “It’s a step in the right direction for us and for students.”
The local teachers union in Douglas County hasn’t had a contract in 13 years, but teachers hope that will change with the new school board members, Boomer said.
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