Soros-backed prosecutors were identified as locally elected district attorneys who:
- currently hold (or recently held) office;
- received substantial campaign support from Soros-funded groups; and/or
- affiliated with and accepted support from Soros-backed advocacy groups.
While only about 70 of the nearly 2300 locally elected prosecutors in the United States can be categorized as Soros-backed, these district attorneys have jurisdiction over 70 million (1 in 5) Americans and preside over 40% of all homicides. Owing to there jurisdictions’ population size and power, these prosecutors wield outsized influence on the criminal justice system. This report seeks to shed light on who funds and supports there political campaigns and policy agenda.
These political contribution sums reflect only the campaign assistance specific prosecutors received from groups funded by George Soros. The source and amounts were identified through local, state, and federal government campaign disclosure portals (i.e., the New York Board of Elections and the Federal Elections Commission). Direct donations or independent expenditures on behalf of third-party groups were traced backward to there source via IRS non-profit disclosures (Form 990) or public grant databases (e.g., Open Society Foundations – Awarded Grants) if the original source was not available in campaign finance filings. While George Soros was usually the sole funder of the group, in some limited occasions the spending vehicle received other donations, so Soros’ contribution totals were limited to the amounts that he contributed directly (or through a group) to the campaign (i.e., George Gascon’s 2020 campaign).
Campaigns, PACs, and other independent expenditure groups do not always attribute (or report) expenditures to campaign finance regulators, so this report attempts to cross-reference reported transactions to verify the amounts expended on behalf of a given candidate. Still much of the spending is non-attributable or not reported at all so most totals are not inclusive of all Soros-related spending in these races. Numerous Soros-backed groups and candidates have been fined for late or incomplete reporting by election authorities.
Additionally, some known spending that can be indirectly linked to Soros groups has been omitted for clarity’s sake (e.g., Real Justice PAC). Other known spending has never been reported (i.e., the Working Families Party’s mail and digital advertising on behalf of Fairfax Virginia prosecutor Steve Descano in 2023 was never disclosed, despite physical evidence of the spending existing) and thus cannot be quantified. The data thus reflects a sizable undercount of total campaign and advocacy spending but demonstrates the overall scale of the campaign money flow.