Editor's Note: This piece has been updated to reflect an editor's note posted by Newsmax. An earlier version of this piece, cited Newsmax's error that Donald Sussman founded Maine Momentum. Sussman's representative informed Newsmax and MRC Business that Sussman "was not the founder of Maine Momentum and, moreover, has nothing to do with Maine Momentum including not any contributions to Maine Momentum."
Liberal megadonors like Tom Steyer have spent millions to help Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives in 2018. Now major liberal megadonors appear to have set their eyes, and their resources, on helping Democrats retake control of the Senate.
Newsmax reported Oct. 20, Sen. Susan Collins, (R-ME), “is now a top target for Democrats angry with her decisive vote last year to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.” It also put her within the line of sight of major liberal donor cash from George Soros, sons Alexander and Jonathan, and Donald Sussman, who are supporting one of her biggest challengers and Speaker for the Maine House of Representatives Sara Gideon (D).
The Soroses and Sussman have each contributed the maximum $2,800 to Gideon’s campaign.
A group called Maine Momentum, has spent “an estimated $1 million on TV spots attacking votes by Sen. Collins for her support of the Trump tax cut bill,” Newsmax noted.
The conservative group Foundation for Accountability for Civic Trust (FACT) sent a letter requesting the Internal Revenue Service investigate Maine Momentum, “indicating it was working for the ’private benefit’ of Maine's Democratic entities rather than promoting social welfare, as required by its 501c(4) status,” Fox News reported Oct. 12.
Gideon, along with other Democrats in the Maine Democratic primary race have targeted Collins’ “corporate and out-of-state backers,” the Associated Press noted on July 16.
However, Newsmax undercut Gideon’s critique of Collins’ out-of-state funding, countering that “a careful scrutiny of Gideon’s latest fundraising figures shows that $1,359,746.87 — or 81.47 percent of all she has raised so far — comes from out-of-state donors.”
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Most of her fundraising came out of dark blue states like California and New York, Newsmax reported. Go figure.
Rather than conservative groups, “it’s liberal groups that are staking out the early advertising game, trying to change Collins’ reputation in the state from a pragmatic voice in the middle to a corporate-controlled Republican who has backed President Trump’s agenda and high court nominees at critical points,” reported RealClearPolitics on Sept. 10.
“If you turned on the television in Maine, you would think the 2020 election is just days away as the state is under a Democratic blitz,” Newsmax noted, ”with negative ad after negative ad aimed at the independent-minded Collins.”
This is also not the only senate seat George Soros, Alexander Soros, and Sussman have aimed to flip for the 2020 electoral cycle. They have also donated the maximum amount to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) prominent liberal challenger Amy McGrath (D).
Both the elder Soros and Sussman have been listed by Open Secrets as being among the top three donors to outside spending groups for 2019-2020, having donated $6,285,000 and $6,050,000 respectively to liberal causes exclusively.
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