In 2016 and 2020, Kate Wiliams won her races for the Regional Transportation District board — and didn’t raise or spend a single dollar to do it.
“I didn't do any fundraising and I didn't accept any money,” said Williams, who left her seat earlier this year because of an illness. “I said, ‘I don't need it.’ “
This time around, however, a lot more money is sloshing around the District A race in central Denver. Two candidates in the three-way race have raised more than $45,000 each. An environmental advocacy group has thrown in $110,000 more to be split between the District A race and the competitive District F race on the eastern side of the metro.
“That’s just amazing,” Williams said, adding: “That’s so much money.”
After a quiet, mostly uncontested slate of races in 2022, there’s booming interest in political positions in charge of steering Colorado’s largest transportation authority amid growing interest in transit as a method to help the environment and the continued fallout over the legislature’s and Gov. Jared Polis’ failed bid to reform the district earlier this year.
Twice as many candidates have made the ballot across eight races this cycle. Many of those candidates are running low-budget campaigns typical of RTD board contests, but two of the races — especially the District A race — are anything but shoestring.
Here’s a look at the two races and who’s putting money behind whom.
Unions, lobbyists, state officials, and more all try to influence the District A race
Chris Nicholson, a central Denver resident with a background in politics and public policy, said most of the large donations to his campaign came from friends and family from out of state.
“I am lucky to have the ability to go to the people I'm close to and raise the money necessary to run a campaign like this,” Nicholson said. “Not everyone comes from that background and I'm very cognizant of that.”
Nicholson also received a $10,000 contribution from the political arm of the main RTD union, the ATU-1001, state election spending reports show.
Lance Longenbohn, the president of the local union chapter, said he decided to make that large donation after getting to know Nicholson at the legislature last spring. The two were opposed to the failed RTD reform bill that, in its first form, would’ve cut elected seats from the agency’s board.
“He pissed some people off in the process,” Longenbohn said of Nicholson. “But he accomplished what he wanted to [and was] very aggressively helping me.”
Longenbohn said he was also impressed by Nicholson’s knowledge of RTD and his vision for improving the agency.
Nicholson also has received hundreds of dollars from current and former elected officials, including ex-state representatives Edie Hooton and Rob Witwer, current Rep. Judy Amabile, and Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett, records show. He’s been endorsed by Denver Mayor Mike Johnston but does not appear to have received a donation from him.
The other highly funded candidate in the District A race is Kiel Brunner, a data scientist who’s married to Gov. Jared Polis’ deputy chief of staff Danielle Oliveto. Multiple people in the governor’s orbit have made large donations to Brunner’s campaign, records show.
Polis and his mother Susan Schutz have each given $2,000. He’s received hundreds from other Polis advisors and administration officials including Lisa Kaufmann, David Oppenheim and Megan Collignon.
Some of the state’s most powerful lobbyists and political consultants are also backing Brunner, including R.D. Sewald, Josh Hanfling, Maria Garcia Berry and Roger Sherman. In total, Brunner’s received nearly $7,000 from consultants, according to state data.
Brunner said he’s met power players in the state’s political world, whom he called “pillars of the community,” through his own career and that of his wife.
“It means a ton to me to be able to have them standing with me and believe in what I'm able to bring to the table for RTD,” Brunner said.
Big outside dollars are flowing into District A and District F races too
Conservation Colorado, one of the state’s most prominent and best-funded environmental advocacy groups, inserted itself into RTD politics by spending more than $112,000 through its political arm on flyers and ads on behalf of Kiel Brunner and Bernard Celestin, a candidate in the District F race. At least 60 percent of that will go toward Brunner’s race, said Kelly Nordini, CEO of Conservation Colorado.
The organization decided this year it “couldn’t wait any longer to get involved” in the RTD races, Nordini said.
“Transportation is the biggest source of climate change-causing pollution in Colorado,” she said in an interview. “If we are going to ensure the state meets our climate targets, the time is short and RTD has a really important role to play.”
Nicholson said he was “disappointed” by Conservation Colorado’s contribution. State records show the third candidate in the District A race, former bus driver Bob Dinegar, has raised less than $1,000. He called the amount of money in the race “mind-boggling.”
“I'll enjoy watching my opponents get tangled up in an ad-buying frenzy,” he said. “We know how much voters love political ads. The smart money’s on me, the candidate with direct experience in RTD's operations, maintenance, security and governance.”
A fiscal conservative vs. a self-funded retiree in District F
Celestin, another former bus driver, has spent nearly $7,000 of his own money on his campaign for District F, which covers Aurora and other parts of the east metro. He hasn’t accepted donations, he said, because the race is such a personal campaign he felt he couldn’t ask others for help.
“I just budgeted a certain amount that I could dedicate to my cause,” he said. “If I win, I'll thank the Lord. If I lose, I'll thank the Lord because it's a wonderful process.”
Celestin, however, will benefit from tens of thousands of dollars from Conservation Colorado. The group supports Celestin’s priorities, Nordini said, including improving the safety, frequency and reliability of RTD’s buses and trains. They also oppose the politics of his opponent, fiscal conservative Kathleen Chandler.
“As a former community leader and bus driver, he really brings a unique voice to the board that we think will be valuable,” Nordini said. “So that seemed a very clear choice there.”
Prominent fiscal conservative Jon Caldara chaired the RTD board in the 1990s as it was trying to convince voters to approve a tax increase for its rail expansion plans. Caldara helped defeat RTD’s first ballot attempt in 1997, though it ultimately succeeded in 2004. More recently, fiscal conservative Natalie Menten held a board seat for eight years and routinely pushed the agency to cut costs.
Chandler, who’s worked for the conservative Independence Institute that Caldara leads, hopes to follow in their footsteps and advocate for taxpayers. She called Conservation Colorado’s contribution a “crazy amount of money.” She’s raised about $11,000, largely from community members, she said. The largest donation was $500, records show.
“It just shows a lot of grassroots support for my campaign,” she said.
Will any of these dollars matter?
Well-funded candidates don’t always win RTD races. Kate Williams, who won District A in 2016 and 2020, beat opponents who raised amounts ranging from $400 to $13,485.
“I went to every rec center, every senior center, every community meeting,” Williams said in an interview this week.
Williams, who declined to make an endorsement in the District A race, is also skeptical that all these donors will get very much for their money. While the agency’s board does decide who should run RTD as its CEO — a responsibility one prominent board member calls “the show” — the CEO ultimately has far more power than a single board member, Williams said.
“The staff really runs the agency,” Williams said. “I find it real interesting that everybody is essentially trying to buy their way into having a say in what goes on in transit. I think that people are being misled into how much effect their RTD director is going to have.”
