Billionaire political activist George Soros and his mega-rich son Alexander have dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Minnesota’s midterm elections.
According to a recent report from MinnPost, the heir to the Soros fortune donated $100,000 to the People’s Lawyer PAC, an independent expenditure committee established to elect Keith Ellison to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. That donation alone accounts for nearly half of all financial contributions to the group, which had raised $202,000 as of September.
All but one donation to the Ellison PAC have come from out of state donors, including Alexander Soros.
The Minnesota Sun found that the Soros family has contributed upwards of $20,000 to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party’s Senate candidates. Both George and Alexander Soros have donated $5,400 each to the campaigns of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), at a total of $21,600.
Soros’ Open Society Foundation is doling out even more money to Democratic causes and candidates, and is actively working against Republicans in important swing states, such as Minnesota, the Capital Research Center reports. Additionally, during the 2018 Minnesota primaries, Soros and fellow billionaire Tom Steyer used $1.4 million from their State Victory Action Super PAC to run ads against Republican Tim Pawlenty.
Particular details about the Open Society Foundation’s funding tactics, however, are difficult to come by, since it was found to be among “the least transparent” non-profits in the United States. Meanwhile, The Washington Free Beacon has reported extensively on the difficulties in tracing funds for the State Victory Action Super PAC.
The Soros’ alleged “dark money” tactics have made them the go-to target for Republicans, who have accused the Soros family of backing everything from the recent anti-Kavanaugh protests to the migrant caravan currently making its way through Mexico to the U.S. border.
In a recent op-ed for Fox News, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA-01) criticized Soros for supporting the “most radical elements” of the Democratic Party.
“As we continue to hear new reports of violence being committed against Republicans, simply because of their political views, it is clear that the most radical elements of the Democratic Party are taking over,’ Scalise writes. “Democratic Party leaders have been reluctant to stop this. Remarkably few have spoken out forcefully against this violence, and what’s worse, some continue to stoke this hysteria instead.”
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
