Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt received $213,000 worth of in-kind contributions linked to billionaire progressive philanthropist George Soros late last month, campaign finance records show.
The flyers and advertising provided by the Working Families Party of Oregon represented the largest contribution from a single individual or entity in the increasingly bitter race, campaign finance records show.
The contributions bring Schmidt’s fundraising haul to about $800,000 compared to the more than $1 million his challenger, Nathan Vasquez, has raised so far.
The election is May 21.
An examination of Federal Election Commission filings shows the donations from the Working Families Party of Oregon can be linked back to Soros, the investor and mega-donor to Democratic candidates and causes from New York who has a long record of supporting elected district attorneys with change-oriented agendas, like Schmidt.
Two days before the Working Families Party of Oregon donated to Schmidt’s campaign, it received $340,000 from the Working Families Party National PAC, records show.
In March, the national PAC recorded a $1 million contribution from Democracy PAC, federal records show. In January, Soros’ Fund for Policy Reform gave $60 million to Democracy PAC, representing more than 99% of Democracy PAC’s receipts for the first quarter of 2024.
Vanessa Clifford, Pacific Northwest regional director for the national Working Families Party, said the organization supports Schmidt’s “vision for a more just and equitable Multnomah County” but did not acknowledge the organization’s financial support from Soros.
Andrew Rogers, Schmidt’s campaign manager, said Schmidt appreciates the group’s support, referring to it as a “grassroots party led by labor and community leaders throughout the country.”
In a July 31, 2022, commentary in the Wall Street Journal, Soros said prosecutors advocating for change have coalesced around an agenda that “promises to be more effective and just,” treats addiction as a disease not a crime and “seeks to end the criminalization of poverty and mental illness.”
“This is why I have supported the election (and more recently the re-election) of prosecutors who support reform,” he wrote. “I have done it transparently, and I have no intention of stopping.”
Oregon filings show the money from the Working Families Party went toward campaign flyers attacking Vasquez for his voting record; Multnomah County elections records show Vasquez did not cast a vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Vasquez was a registered Republican until 2017, when he changed his registration to the Independent Party. Last fall, county records show, he changed his registration to unaffiliated. The DA’s post is nonpartisan.
The flyer said: “In 2016, Republican Nathan Vasquez didn’t vote to stop Donald Trump.” It includes photos of Vasquez, Trump and Rudy Guiliani, Trump’s former lawyer.
Vasquez said Monday he did not focus on politics then and “like many Americans, at various points I have been disillusioned and disappointed in the negative nature of politics.” He said he was “offended” by Trump’s election in 2016.
“I was disaffected from national politics,” he said. He voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 and plans to vote for him again this fall, he said.
Vasquez said he doubts the out-of-state dollars will “reflect anything that people who actually live and work here want to see.”
Oregonian politics editor Jamie Goldberg contributed to this report.
-- Noelle Crombie is an enterprise reporter with a focus on the justice system. Reach her at 503-276-7184; ncrombie@oregonian.
Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.