The 89-year-old billionaire is playing a role in the US presidential election via a super PAC (political action committee) that makes generous donations to pro-Democratic groups.
The self-styled liberal philanthropist George Soros has donated more than $28 million into Democratic groups in the first quarter of the year.
The Soros-funded Democracy PAC, his hub for 2020 election spending, has pumped $5 million so far this year into Priorities USA Action, according to paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Priorities USA is a large pro-Biden super PAC; it is spending more than $7.5 million on television and digital attack ads in the key 2020 battleground states, which accuse Donald Trump of downplaying the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic.
Soros’s Democracy PAC has also channeled $7 million into Senate Majority PAC, a group working to expand the Democratic majority in the Senate, since 1 January.
Another $10 million has gone to Win Justice, a coalition of organisations which mobilises infrequent voters – women, people of colour, and those under 35 in particular – to turn out on Election Day.
Soros has also donated $1 million to EMILY’s List, a political action committee working to help elect pro-choice Democratic female candidates get elected, and $2 million to American Bridge, an opposition research hub that monitors public appearances by Republican politicians and tries to catch them when their statements don’t match their record.
Soros, who notoriously made his fortune off currency manipulations, has long been a Democratic donor; he was one of the top contributors to the Clinton campaign in 2016 cycle, but has not publicly backed any candidate this year. However, in an interview this fall he indicated his sympathy for Senator Elizabeth Warren, calling her the “most qualified” candidate.
Biden has become the presumptive Democratic nominee after his only remaining rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, suspended his campaign following a series of defeats in state contests.
The Hungarian-American billionaire galvanised his lobbying efforts and spending on left-wing causes since Donald Trump took office. His lobbying arm, the Open Society Policy Centre, became the third-biggest lobbying group in DC last year, spending more advocacy money than major corporations such as Boeing, Amazon and Alphabet.
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