Liberal billionaire George Soros gave an additional $250,000 to Virginia Democrat Tom Perriello in May, bringing his total contributions to the former one-term congressman's primary to $500,000, according to a campaign finance report filed on Monday.
Together with $50,000 that was given to Perriello from Soros's son Gregory, money from the Soros family accounted for 16 percent of the money the campaign brought in between April 1 and June 1 of this year.
The new contributions come after Soros gave $250,000 to Perriello in January and two of his other sons—Alexander and Jonathan—gave $135,470 to Perriello in March, bringing the total amount the Soros family has given to Perriello to $685,470.
Soros was not the only Democratic mega-donor to chip in during the final two months of Perriello's push to defeat Virginia lieutenant governor Ralph Northam in the June 13 Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Joining Soros with $300,000 worth of contributions is Donald Sussman, a hedge fund manager who sits on the board of directors at the Center for American Progress. Perriello was president and chief executive officer for the Center for American Progress Action Fund from 2011 to 2014.
Sussman says he spent $40 million supporting groups backing Democrat Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 presidential bid. He said his goal was to "get money out of politics."
Sussman purchased a $27.5 million mansion in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., this January.
Despite the big-dollar contributions from liberal mega-donors, Perriello was outpaced by Northam, who spent about $1 million more than Perriello during the two-month period and still entered June with about $400,000 more cash-in-hand than Perriello.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch also notes that a large bulk of contributions to Northam in the period came from inside Virginia while Perriello was boosted largely from out-of-state donors.
"Just 28.3 percent of Perriello's contributions for the period came from donors with a Virginia address, according to VPAP," the Times-Dispatch wrote Tuesday. "Roughly 87.8 percent of Northam's money came from Virginia donors."
Perriello communications director Ian Sams countered critiques that the campaign was receiving so much money from out-of-state by pointing out that Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe, who is supporting Lieutenant Governor Northam, received just 31 percent of his contributions from Virginians during his 2013 campaign.
Sams denied a Washington Free Beacon request to elaborate on his tweets defending the amount of money Perriello received from out-of-state.
Perriello's rate of out-of-state contributions increased in his campaign’s most recent filing.
Entering the most recent filing period, Perriello had received 56 percent of his contributions from out-of-state, with $806,372 coming from New York and just over $100,000 from both California and Washington, D.C.