Image does not show George Soros’ donation to Iowa caucus app
CLAIM: Federal records show George Soros is the biggest funder of the failed app used by the Iowa Democratic Party during Monday’s caucuses.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The data shows a donation by Soros to the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that has sued states over voting rights issues and legislative redistricting.
THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a chart of federal donations to falsely claim that Soros, a liberal financier, donated $2.6 million to Shadow Inc., which created the caucus app for the Iowa Democratic Party..
“And there it is. The single largest donor of Shadow Inc., the company behind the failed Iowa Caucus app, is George Soros,” one Twitter user wrote, sharing an image of the chart.
The chart does not show a donation by Soros to Shadow Inc. Instead, the chart, which was published in a November 2019 online news article, shows Soros gave $2.6 million to the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. Federal tax documents confirm the donations were made in 2018.
The chart of Soros’ donation was created to reveal the largest funders of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee from 2017 to June 2019, Alex Kotch, the article’s author, confirmed in an email to The Associated Press.
Federal campaign finance records show that the National Democratic Redistricting Committee gave $2 million in 2018 to PACRONYM. PACRONYM is the political action committee created by Acronym, the liberal group that helped launch and fund Shadow Inc. last year.
Soros has not directly given to PACRONYM, according to federal campaign finance records.
In a statement on Twitter, Shadow Inc. apologized for the delays in results and confirmed it had “contracted with the Iowa Democratic Party to build a caucus reporting mobile app for local officials to use” Monday.
___
This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.
Here’s more information on Facebook’s fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536