Left-wing billionaires have poured tens of millions of dollars into a super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as Democrats look to retain the upper chamber come 2025, records show.
The influential Senate Majority PAC has been stockpiling cash ahead of the 2024 Senate elections, raising $37 million in the first six months of this year. That impressive haul is partially thanks to the help of a variety of wealthy liberal donors, including the Hungarian American philanthropist George Soros, who combined to boost the Schumer-tied committee with over $16 million between February and June, according to campaign finance disclosures.
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"Everybody has heard of George Soros, but the reality is the Left has dozens of billionaires like him, and it seems that almost all of them are rolling out the red carpet and the checkbook for Democratic Senate candidates this cycle," Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher for the conservative think tank Capital Research Center, told the Washington Examiner.
The contributions underscore how deep-pocketed figures on the Left are helping to build 2024 war chests for Democrats, which, as a party, is expected to shell out large sums in connection to the presidential election and competitive Senate seats, including in Ohio, Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Democracy PAC II, a group launched by Soros in 2021, steered Senate Majority PAC $2.5 million in June, following its $6 million combined donations in 2021 and 2022, according to disclosures. The PAC's treasurer is Michael Vachon, a Soros spokesman who has sat on the board of the Democracy Alliance, a powerful liberal donor once described by Politico as "the country's most powerful liberal donor club," documents show.
Meanwhile, Alex Soros, the 37-year-old son of George Soros and successor to his father's $25 billion empire, has amassed influence with top lawmakers, meeting with Schumer at least nine times since 2019, following his $5.5 million in contributions to Senate Majority PAC from 2016 to 2018, records show.
"After defying history and expanding Democrats' Senate majority in 2022, Senate Majority PAC's strong fundraising sets us once more on the path to success," Senate Majority PAC President JB Poersch, an ex-managing director for the Democratic-aligned consulting firm SKDK, told the Washington Examiner.
Stephen Mandel, a hedge fund manager who founded the Connecticut-based investment fund Lone Pine Capital, donated $3 million to Senate Majority PAC in June, while Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings gave it $2 million in May, disclosures show.
It was Mandel's second-largest federal donation to date behind the $5 million he sent in 2022 to Future Forward PAC, a pro-Biden group with an affiliated dark money nonprofit group. Hastings has given around $8 million to Senate Majority PAC total since 2014 and, separately, supported the likes of the Biden Victory Fund, Hillary Victory Fund, and Obama Victory Fund.
Fred Eychaner, a longtime Democratic donor who founded the alternative newspaper printer Newsweb Corporation, gave the Schumer-affiliated PAC $2 million in June. Jeffrey Skoll, eBay's former president estimated to be worth $4.1 billion, made a $1.5 million contribution to the PAC in June.
Liberal donors who gave $1 million each between February and June to Senate Majority PAC include entrepreneur Phillip Ragon, businesswoman and oil industry heiress Stacy H. Schusterman, and Deborah Simon, daughter of the late-Hollywood producer Melvin Simon, records show.
Investor Henry Laufer made a $500,000 donation to the PAC in May, while his wife, Marsha Laufer, gave it the same amount. Billionaire heiress and gardener Amy Goldman Fowler pumped $500,000 into Senate Majority PAC that same month, according to disclosures.
Two other donors have been DreamWorks Animation co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, who donated $250,000 to the PAC in June, and Jon Stryker, a philanthropist and billionaire heir to the Stryker Corporation fortune. Stryker sent $250,000 to the PAC in May, records show.
"Heading into the 2024 cycle, Democrats are organized, motivated, and ready to defeat Mitch McConnell's slate of out-of-touch corporatists and fringe candidates," Poersch added.
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Senate Majority PAC, as well as the pro-GOP Senate Leadership Fund super PAC, which is aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2022 midterm elections combined. The Democratic PAC did not provide any context as to its 2024 spending plans upon being asked by the Washington Examiner.
Schumer's campaign also did not return a request for comment.