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Steven Spielberg Donates to Soros-Funded PAC in Florida

Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw have each given hundreds of thousands to Dems for midterms

Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg / Getty Images
September 25, 2018

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw are two of only a handful of individuals who have donated to a George Soros-backed effort in Florida that is part of a larger campaign to push infrequent voters to the polls in three states for the midterm elections.

The effort, called the "Win Justice" campaign, is a collaboration between four anti-Trump liberal activist groups including Planned Parenthood Votes, Color of Change PAC, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Center for Community Change Action to target people of color, young people, and women in an attempt to push them to vote in November.

The initiative was launched earlier this year and focuses on voters in Florida, Michigan, and Nevada, all of which feature competitive Senate races. The coalition said they plan to reach 2.5 million voters using digital organization, door knocking, and peer-to-peer texting and will spend $30 million this cycle to reach voters.

The coalition's federal PAC, the Win Justice PAC, is operated by Deepak Pateriya, the chief of staff at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Community Change, its statement of organization shows. Deepak Bhargava, the executive director of the Center for Community Change, sits on the advisory board for U.S. programs at Soros's Open Society Foundations. The group is additionally an approved organization of the Democracy Alliance, the left's biggest secretive dark money liberal donor network that was co-founded by Soros.

Soros cut a $3 million check to the federal committee on March 28 and for months was its sole funder. Since the initial Soros donation, the PAC has taken in $1.6 million in additional contributions from just one other PAC and two other individuals, including Jennifer Allan-Soros, Soros's daughter in law, Federal Election Commission filings show.

As part of the effort, the coalition also established PACs in the states where they are targeting voters, including Florida, state filings show.

Win Justice's Florida PAC is registered to an agent in Tallahassee and reports nearly $1.9 million in contributions, which largely has come from four liberal PACs and groups.

Soros was the largest individual donor—not including PACs—at $100,000. The Florida PAC received donations from only five individuals, including Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw, who each gave $2,500 to the PAC in August, according to its filings. 

Spielberg and Capshaw have given much more at the federal level to support Democrats this cycle. The couple has cut hundreds of thousands of dollars in checks to the Senate Majority PAC, House Majority PAC, and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, among others. They have also maxed out donations to numerous Senate and House candidates.

Win Justice's federal PAC made its first independent expenditure on Sep. 13 and has since spent $324,977.22 on canvassing in support of Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in Florida, who is facing a tough race against Republican Rick Scott. The federal PAC has sent $155,000 to its Florida committee.

The federal PAC has additionally disbursed more than $2 million to the groups involved with the coalition, with $910,095 going to Community Change Voters, which is affiliated with Center for Community Change Action; $879,775 to the Color of Change PAC; and $301,500 to Planned Parenthood Votes.

An inquiry sent to Amblin Partners, a restructured DreamWorks studio founded by Spielberg, on the donations was not returned by press time.