Last week, two conservative Cherry Creek School Board candidates each received $5,000 donations from President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, and his wife, according to state campaign finance records.
The donations to Tatyana Sturm and Amanda Thayer appear to confirm the candidates’ known ties to the MAGA agenda, but neither accepted an offer to explain the donation or their connections to Trump or his associates.
Reached by phone, Sturm hung up abruptly after telling the Colorado Times Recorder, “This is a nonpartisan race, so I don’t have any statement to make about that.” Thayer didn’t return a call seeking comment.
The Cherry Creek School District Board races are officially nonpartisan, but Sturm and Thayer are the de facto right-wing options. Multiple conservative donors have given to both candidates, and the pair share an overlapping endorsement from Molly Lamar, a 2022 arch-conservative failed State Board of Education candidate.
Sturm and Thayer promote each other in an online campaign video, which presents the candidates as a slate, stating directly, “Vote for Amanda Thayer and Tatyana Sturm for Cherry Creek School Board.”
Wright is a former oil company executive with a long record of downplaying the risks posed by climate change, comparing the study of it to eugenics. He lists his employer on his state donation forms for both candidates as “government.”
Sturm, a real estate agent, faces Michael Hamrick for the open District E slot on the Cherry Creek School District Board. Thayer, who works at Ryatheon, is battling Terry Bates for the open seat representing District D.
