http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/09/21/soros-resumes-donations-to-help-democratic-candidates/

September 21, 2012

Soros Resumes Donations to Help Democratic Candidates

By Brody Mullins

Democratic heavyweight George Soros keeps inching his way back into partisan politics.

The latest evidence: Mr. Soros donated $100,000 in August to a super PAC created to help Democrats win control of the House in the November election.

The contribution, tucked into a fundraising report released late Thursday night, is the latest evidence that Mr. Soros's self-imposed hiatus from election politics may be coming to an end after nearly a decade.

What Mr. Soros does with his money could be important because the billionaire investor was once the No. 1 source of money to Democratic candidates and causes. In the 2004 presidential election, Mr. Soros contributed $23.7 million -- a record amount at the time.

(Mr. Soros record was finally surpassed this year by Republican casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, who together donated $36 million to Republican candidates and super PACs.)

But after Democrats and Mr. Kerry lost the 2004 election, Mr. Soros decided that he no longer wanted to be a major funder of the Democrats' election campaigns. Instead, he moved his money to progressive causes and issues rather than electoral politics.

That began to change earlier in this election cycle when he donated $175,000 to a pair of super PACs created to help Democrats keep control of the Senate and win a majority in the House. Since then, he has slowly ramped up his spending.

In June he contributed $1 million to a super PAC set up to help Democratic candidates across the country.

The latest $100,000 donation, which came on Aug. 31, brings his total election donations to about $1.3 million for the 2012 campaign.

That's still just a fraction of what Mr. Soros used to give. But it put Mr. Soros is in the ranks of the Top 20 donors to Democratic causes thus far in the election.