Soros donates $1M to pro-Obama super-PAC

by Cameron Joseph - 09/27/12 10:29 PM ET

Liberal billionaire George Soros has donated $1 million to Priorities USA, the super-PAC backing President Obama’s reelection, two sources with knowledge of the donation confirmed to The Hill.

{mosads}The donation comes as a shift for Soros, who’d donated to other pro-Democratic super-PACs earlier this year and has long bankrolled a number of liberal grassroots organizations — but had yet to give any money directly toward supporting Obama this cycle.

According to reports, Soros has been less than thrilled with Obama at times, and after Democrats took a drubbing at the polls in 2010, he told other big-time Democratic donors that they “should start looking somewhere else” to donate. He did, however, donate $1 million in May to American Bridge, a Democratic opposition research super-PAC digging up dirt on Republicans including Mitt Romney.

Later Thursday, Soros adviser Michael Vachon also confirmed the donation.

“Soros has always been a supporter of the president, reports to contrary notwithstanding,” Vachon said.

Soros has also made a donation of a half-million dollars total to Majority PAC and the House Majority PAC, two groups backing congressional Democrats. The donations were first reported by The New York Times.

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The donation should help boost Priorities USA, which has picked up its fundraising pace in recent months after a slow start, but is nonetheless expected to be outspent by a wide margin by Republican groups including American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS.

— This post was last updated at 6:29 p.m.

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