Soros' $800k Attempt To Buy Election Backfires When GOP Candidate Nets Even Larger Win Than Expected
George Soros was apparently very interested in making sure Sandra Doorley, the district attorney of Monroe County, New York, didn’t get re-elected.
Unfortunately for him, voters weren’t terribly interested in Soros’ entreaties.
Even by the low standards of off-year local and state elections, the Monroe County DA’s race didn’t get a whole lot of attention.
What media gaze existed this election cycle was directed toward the Virginia legislature and Kentucky gubernatorial races. That may have had something to do with the fact that both presented uniquely bad situations for Republican incumbents, but I don’t want to cast aspersions on the coverage.
Instead, I’d like to note that while Monroe County politics might not be what most of us find transfixing (no offense, Monroe Countyites), it’s surprising the race didn’t garner more attention. Doorley has been a target of liberals for some time now, mostly because of an aggressive prosecutorial style.
Take this paragraph from a piece on Doorley in Filter magazine, a progressive criminal justice publication: “Sandra Doorley, who took office as Monroe County’s DA in 2012 and prosecuted cases there for 20 years before that, comes across in some ways as American prosecution’s answer to Sarah Palin. Her legal mishaps and tone-deafness would make a good character study for the directors of a cop-themed mockumentary like ‘Reno 911!’ — except that it would be much too dark.”
Tell us how you really feel. Except for the existence of a “Reno 911!” reference in 2019 piece, there wasn’t anything particularly unique about what Filter found; they didn’t like the fact that she prosecuted a lot of people but then were upset because they felt her office bungled a shooting case.
So either you’re getting too much justice in Monroe County or not enough.
The 56-year-old Doorley, a former Democrat who switched her party allegiance to Republican before the 2015 election, faced progressive Democrat Shani Curry Mitchell in Tuesday’s election.
“We have to get beyond this concept of incarcerate, incarcerate,” Mitchell said on the campaign trail, according to the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, New York.
“Mitchell contended that Doorley’s office has exacerbated the racial inequity in the jail population with policies that often led to arrests of African-Americans, such as low-level marijuana possession charges,” the Democrat & Chronicle reported. “Doorley countered those claims with statistics she said showed that most who ended up jailed on marijuana crimes often did so as a resolution of multiple criminal charges.”
This would have again been wholly unique or unexceptional — except for the fact that George Soros dropped $800,000 into Mitchell’s campaign beginning in early October, according to The New York Times.
Soros, who has been known to bankroll causes and candidates amenable to a more lenient approach to criminal justice, donated to the campaign through a PAC.
The money was spent on television and digital ads for Mitchell — The Daily Wire reported — and arguably made more news than anything else in the race did.
While Mitchell said she didn’t ask for Soros to spend his money in Monroe County, she didn’t exactly disavow his efforts, either.
“Somebody has believed in me, and my message of reform,” Mitchell says.
That’s wonderful, but the important people to believe in your messages should be the voters. That, uh, didn’t happen.
The $800K of Soros-funded ads appear to have backfired in the Monroe County DA race.
Incumbent Sandra Doorley, a Republican, is cruising with more than half of precincts reporting. pic.twitter.com/XSP0JpjjKX
— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellGAN) November 6, 2019
And that’s especially true when you compare it to the other major race in Monroe County, where Democrat Adam Bello won the race for county executive. That made him the first Democratic executive in the county in almost 30 years.
… and I mean REALLY backfired.
Compare the early DA results to the Monroe County exec race, where the Democrat (Adam Bello) has a very slim lead.
— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellGAN) November 6, 2019
Unofficial results gave Doorley 56 percent of the vote as she sailed to a third term. In her victory speech, she gave a shout-out to the man who bankrolled her opponent:
VIDEO: Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley celebrates victory, jokingly thanks George Soros for re-election pic.twitter.com/gRtVK2D55a
— 13WHAM (@13WHAM) November 6, 2019
“The Republican Party in Monroe County is not dead, and we are alive and well,” Doorley said.
“And look at all of the great people here. We still have the energy and we will be back,” she said. “And I am back for another 4 more years, so, thank you, George Soros.”
In a rough year for some Republicans around the country, the better part of $1 million from George Soros should have helped defeat Doorley.
Instead, Mitchell’s carpetbagging seemed to bolster the incumbent’s chances.
Given the fact that the race was deemed to be close and a Democrat won the county executive’s seat, this is a larger-than-expected win for her — something she acknowledged in her speech.
There’s a lesson here, I just know it.
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