ICYMI: Sorensen pocketed $205,000 from special interests despite campaign finance claims
Washington Examiner found that radical Eric Sorensen accepted hundreds of thousands in campaign donations from special interest groups and Democratic leadership PACs despite claiming only people are bankrolling his campaign.
NRCC Comment: “Just like liberal Eric Sorensen is lying to voters to hide his radical climate change activism and his anti-police record, he’s also lying about his campaign contributions. Illinois voters can’t trust Sorensen.” – NRCC Spokeswoman Courtney Parella
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Democratic hopeful pocketed $205,000 from special interests despite campaign finance claims
Washington Examiner
Gabe Kaminsky
October 20, 2022
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/eric-sorensen-midterms-2022-democrat-chicago-special-interests
Democratic Illinois House nominee Eric Sorensen accepted hundreds of thousands in campaign donations from special interest groups and Democratic leadership PACs despite claiming only people are bankrolling his congressional bid, records show.
“You know what?” Sorensen said at a Sunday “Get Out the Vote” event in Rockford, Illinois. “I haven’t taken one dime from a corporation. Everything that we’ve brought in this campaign has been brought in by a person.”
But even though Sorensen made this claim, campaign filings showed he raked in roughly $205,000 between March and September from a combination of unions, civil rights groups, left-wing advocacy arms, and Democratic leadership PACs, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
Sorensen is running against Republican Esther Joy King to represent Illinois’s 17th Congressional District. The race is a “toss-up,” according to Politico’s midterm elections forecast and the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan elections tracker.
In September, Sorensen took $33,000 combined from a total of nine unions, including $5,000 each from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC, the Midwest Region Laborers’ Political League, and the American Federation of Teachers. All of these groups have overwhelmingly donated to Democrats this election cycle.
A total of $25,000 between March and September from civil rights groups flowed into Sorensen’s campaign account. This includes $5,000 from the Equality Project PAC, the political arm of the Congressional LGBTQ Equality Caucus, $5,000 from the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a group seeking to get LGBTQ people in government, and also $4,000 from the Center for Freethought Equality PAC, the political arm of the American Humanist Association, a nonprofit group that “advocates progressive values and equality for humanists, atheists, freethinkers, and the non-religious.”
“Just like liberal Eric Sorensen is lying to voters to hide his radical climate change activism and his anti-police record, he’s also lying about his campaign contributions,” a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee told the Washington Examiner. “Illinois voters can’t trust Sorensen.”
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund PAC donated $2,500 to Sorensen’s campaign in September, while Giffords PAC, the political arm of the pro-gun control group Giffords, gave $1,000 that same month.
Other left-wing advocacy groups that have donated to Sorensen’s campaign include the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, an environmental group, NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC, and the NRDC Action Fund PAC, which is focused on “averting dangerous climate change” and is affiliated with the environmental nonprofit group Natural Resources Defense Council.
Among Democratic leadership PACs, Sorensen’s campaign has taken donations from those for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Rep. Pete Aguilar, Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood, Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, Pennsylvania Rep. Madeleine Dean, and a variety of others.
In total, the candidate has received $75,000 from 17 leadership PACs, filings show. And despite Sorensen’s claim that he has not “taken one dime from a corporation,” many of these PACs have received donations from corporate PACs. This includes Pelosi’s leadership PAC, which earned donations this cycle from committees for Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Southern Company, and Metlife.
A spokeswoman for King’s campaign told the Washington Examiner that Sorensen “will say anything to get elected” and that the candidate is “misleading voters” about who he has taken donations from.
The 17th Congressional District in Illinois was redrawn in time for the 2022 election and is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos, who is not running for reelection. In 2020, King lost to Bustos by a narrow margin.
Sorensen’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.