Alabama: Politico Reveals Secret Funding of Democrat Candidate Doug Jones

One of the big questions surrounding the December 12 election in Alabama for the U.S. Senate seat is who is behind a mystery super PAC backing Democrat candidate Doug Jones against Republican Roy Moore. The Washington Post last Thursday claimed that there was no evidence of such funding by George Soros. However on the day before the election, Politico weighed in with a big story about the mystery super PAC, Highway 31, with much greater detail of the players involved.

First we begin with the Washington Post denial that there was evidence of Soros financing the Jones campaign via secret super PAC:

The attempt Wednesday to force the Highway 31 ad off the air was the latest in a string of Moore campaign complaints. On Sunday, after reports by Fox News and Breitbart about progressives registering former felons to vote, Moore suggested that liberal financier George Soros was behind it, without providing any evidence. (The voter-registration campaigners were taking advantage of a Republican-backed law.)

Well, Politico has gone into a lot of detail on the secret super PAC in Secret super PAC backing Jones in Alabama exposed:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A mystery super PAC backing Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama is controlled by a pair of groups closely aligned with the national Democratic Party, even as the candidate strives to dissociate himself from Washington interests.

And guess who helps fund those groups. Politico reveals the answer below:

Highway 31, which dropped more than $4.1 million in support of Jones and against Roy Moore ahead of Tuesday’s Senate special election, is a joint project of two of the largest national Democratic super PACs — Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA Action — along with a group of Alabama Democrats, multiple senior officials familiar with the arrangement told POLITICO.

…The group’s backing has remained secret until now because federal laws do not require it to disclose its donors until after the election. Jones’ camp has kept its distance from the group, and no information has surfaced until now about its background.

…The pair of Washington-based super PACs are two of the largest in Democratic politics. Priorities spent at least $190 million to try and elect Clinton in 2016, while Senate Majority spent more than $90 million in that election cycle. The groups have collected checks from a gamut of top Democratic donors, led by longtime party contributors like George Soros, Jim Simons, Haim Saban and Fred Eychaner. While both Jones and Moore have gotten support from other outside groups in recent weeks, Highway 31 is by far the biggest-spending.

So how important is this Highway 31 super PAC?

While it has largely escaped scrutiny so far, the group is the largest outside spender in the race, outpacing the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action. The Trump-affiliated group has spent more than $1 million on Moore’s behalf this month.

Yes, Highway 31 is spending way more outside money than the opposition in order to place Doug Jones in the U.S. Senate. 

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