Warnock boosted by Soros-funded PAC linked to liberal dark money group, records show
Gabe Kaminsky
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A George Soros-funded political action committee that has ties to a liberal dark money group has spent thousands boosting Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in his reelection bid against Republican Herschel Walker, filings show.
The Georgia Senate race is headed for a runoff for the second time in two years after neither Warnock nor Walker reached a 50% vote majority. The close race went right down to the wire — and just days before Election Day on Nov. 4, Black Voters Matter Action PAC pumped in over $141,600 on independent expenditures to support Warnock. The cash mostly went to radio, video, and vehicle ads, according to Federal Election Commission records.
BVM Action PAC, which was formed in 2020 and backed Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in their prior runoffs, is helmed by left-wing activists and co-founders LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright. The PAC took $1.25 million in 2020 from Democracy PAC, which Soros created in 2019 to influence the 2020 presidential election and is largely financed by him.
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Democracy PAC notably spent $28.3 million in the first three months of 2020 to support a variety of liberal causes in time for the presidential election.
There is a trio of BVM organizations led by Brown and Albright, including the 501(c)(4) BVM Fund and its affiliated 501(c)(3) charity BVM Capacity Building Institute. The two nonprofit groups focus on voter turnout and election-related issues and have received funding from Soros’s Open Society Foundations grant-making network.
501(c)(4) nonprofit groups are often referred to as “dark money” hubs because they do not legally have to disclose their donors to the IRS. Even though this is the case, BVM Fund’s 149 donors are all listed on its 2020 tax documents, the Washington Examiner found. The fund reported a revenue on those documents of almost $23 million, compared to a mere $3.4 million in 2019, records show.
“Far-left liberal donors like George Soros are propping up Raphael Warnock because they want another rubber stamp for Joe Biden’s disastrous agenda that would turn Georgia into California,” Stephen Lawson, a Republican strategist in Georgia, told the Washington Examiner.
BVM Fund’s donors in 2020, which have not yet been reported on, shed light on how powerful liberal groups gave nonprofit organizations massive amounts of cash around the same time as George Floyd’s murder that year. Following Floyd’s murder, there were mass “racial justice” protests and riots in cities across the country.
The Ford Foundation, one of the largest liberal charities, cut an over $1.6 million check to BVM Fund, according to tax records. BVM Fund also received $500,000 from Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society, $335,000 from Neo Philanthropy, a fiscal sponsor for liberal groups, and over $354,000 from the New Venture Fund.
The New Venture Fund is the largest 501(c)(3) charity managed by Arabella Advisors, a powerful Washington, D.C., consulting company that manages other nonprofit groups and has been dubbed “a leading vehicle” of left-wing dark money.
BVM Fund also took $335,000 from the Windward Fund, an environmentalist nonprofit group that is also run by Arabella Advisors, records show.
BVM Fund also took $1.2 million from the Tides Foundation, another top grant-maker and pass-through organization. The Libra Foundation, a grant-maker that mostly funds “social justice” issues and is chaired by Nicholas Pritzker, the former CEO of Hyatt Development Corporation, sent BVM Fund $2.3 million in 2020.
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As a whole, BVM Action PAC has spent over $390,400 between 2021 and 2022 on independent expenditures boosting Democratic candidates, filings show. Its largest expenditure was for Warnock on Nov. 4 for radio advertising, followed by $30,000 supporting Rep. Tim Ryan’s (D-OH) failed-Senate bid against Republican J.D. Vance.
Republican groups have spent over $104 million on independent expenditures opposing Warnock, while Democratic groups have spent over $32 million supporting him, according to filings. BlackPAC, a liberal Super PAC working to mobilize black voters, has spent the most boosting Warnock — over $5 million.
Albright, the BVM co-founder, told Axios Thursday that the fund plans to spend close to $1.7 million supporting Warnock in his runoff — which is the same amount his nonprofit group spent in the last Georgia runoff.
Warnock’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. BVM Action PAC did not respond.