Soros didn't stop at district attorney races, however. He reportedly gave $2 million to an effort to defeat Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who lost in his re-election bid. Forbes figures Soros' wealth to be more than $24 billion, making him the 19th richest person in the world. He has donated millions of dollars over ...
A A. Liberal billionaire George Soros spent nearly $11 million to help 12 candidates running in local district attorney races during the 2016 election cycle, demonstrating a tactic to put Democrats in office up and down the ballot.
The 12 races Soros targeted touched nearly every part of the country, with Soros-influenced elections taking place in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi (two), Georgia, and Florida.
According to The Daily Signal, the 86-year-old did not meet with any of the Democratic candidates he gave money to. When the votes were counted, however, 10 of them defeated Republican incumbents. "Criminal justice reform efforts must take many forms," Soros adviser Whitney Tymas told the Daily Signal.
Since 2015, he has spent more than $17 million on district attorney and other local races in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Arizona, but also in large, predominantly left-of-center states such as California and New York. In 2016, Soros dropped $2,000,000 into a single sheriff race in Maricopa County, Arizona, ...
Some felt these concerns were documented when Robert Shuler Smith —a district attorney for Hinds County, Mississippi, whom Soros had backed—was tried in criminal court for two counts of suspected conspiracy to hinder prosecution and one count of suspected robbery, among other charges.
In 2016, Soros dropped $2,000,000 into a single sheriff race in Maricopa County, Arizona, helping progressive candidate Paul Penzone win the election with ease over longtime incumbent Joe Arpaio. He has given millions of dollars in grants to candidates in several other counties as well.
These huge contributions often make it almost impossible for the other candidates to compete because district attorney elections are on such a small scale and the campaigns typically do not need to raise millions to run local ads and mobilize voters. Constituents are swamped with propaganda, and the opposing conservative candidates are victims of unfair character assassinations, such as defaming them as racists and white supremacists.
At the time when Soros was attempting to undercut her campaign, Beth Grossman, the conservative candidate for district attorney of Philadelphia, said, “the role of the DA’s office is not to conduct a grand social experiment, it is to enforce the laws of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania justly and fairly, and to protect the constitutional rights of everybody: victims, witnesses, as well as those accused of crime.”
As one reporter put it, “This isn’t about either of [the candidates] personally. This is about a man who has no connection to my corner of the world attempting to impose his agenda on a crucial local race without any real understanding of how that will impact the people who have to live with the fallout.”
After Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance declined to prosecute Harvey Weinstein and it was discovered that Weinstein’s legal team had funded Vance’s campaign, state legislators discussed whether there should be restrictions on funding in these races. But almost no one besides the reporters covering local elections has discussed Soros’s forays into reshaping America’s law enforcement system, county by county.