In the North Bay’s all-Democratic House race, the challenger’s self-funding has become the incumbent’s main line of attack in the final week.
With six days left in the race for California’s Fourth Congressional District, the most important number in the contest may be one the challenger wrote himself.
Eric Jones, a 35-year-old Democrat and former venture capitalist, has given or lent his campaign more than $15 million since August 2025, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Rep. Mike Thompson, the 75-year-old Democrat who has represented wine country since 1999, has put in none of his own money. Mr. Thompson’s campaign has made the gap the centerpiece of its closing argument; Mr. Jones says the money is what it takes to challenge an incumbent backed by corporate political action committees.
The two are on the Nov. 3 ballot together because of California’s top-two primary. Mr. Thompson took 41 percent of the vote in June and Mr. Jones 22.2 percent, narrowly ahead of the Republican Ray Riehle, The Press Democrat reported. The district, redrawn under Proposition 50, now runs from Petaluma and Napa through Yolo County to Yuba and Sutter counties.
What the filings show
Records for Eric Jones for Congress list contributions from the candidate in amounts ranging from $28,000 to $4.8 million. The first, $61,133.10, came on Aug. 6, 2025. The largest single contribution, $4.8 million, arrived on April 22, before the primary. In the third quarter of this year he gave four more: $1 million on Aug. 26, $1.5 million on Sept. 9 and two of $1.1 million each on Sept. 22, for a quarterly total of $4.7 million.
Through Oct. 14, the candidate’s contributions totaled $10,064,133.10. On Oct. 1 he also lent the campaign $4.8 million, which the pre-general report, filed Oct. 22, lists as due Dec. 31. A 48-hour notice filed the next day reported two more contributions from Mr. Jones on Oct. 22, of $200,000 and $100,000. Together, that puts his money in the race at about $15.16 million.
The pre-general report shows total receipts, including the candidate’s money, of $18.06 million and spending of $16.52 million through Oct. 14, leaving $1.54 million in cash and $5.87 million in debts. Contributions from individual donors other than the candidate totaled about $3.19 million.
Mr. Thompson’s committee reported raising $5.48 million and spending $5.29 million over the same period, with $1.40 million on hand. About $2.95 million came from individuals and about $2.44 million from political action committees and other committees.
Those numbers match figures the Thompson campaign provided to The Inquirer this week, which put Mr. Thompson’s spending at $5,290,993.22 and his fundraising at $5,482,944.34.
Two campaigns, two accounts of the money
Mr. Thompson’s campaign has issued two releases on the subject this month. The Oct. 23 release called Mr. Jones’s spending a record for self-funding in a California congressional race, citing CalMatters. The Press Democrat, drawing on the same CalMatters research, reported that Mr. Jones’s total was the most a California congressional candidate had ever contributed to his own campaign, while noting that the distinction could depend on additional spending by Saikat Chakrabarti, who CalMatters reported gave nearly $9 million to his own primary campaign in San Francisco’s 11th District.
The releases describe the money somewhat differently than the filings do. The Oct. 16 release said Mr. Jones had “loaned another $4.7 million” in the third quarter; the FEC records list that money as contributions. The Oct. 23 release said he “gave another $4.8 million” in the pre-general period; the filing lists that as a loan, which a campaign can repay.
“California’s 4th Congressional District is not for sale,” Thomas Dowling, Mr. Thompson’s campaign manager, said in the Oct. 23 release. “Voters will not be deceived by a San Francisco venture capitalist air dropping into our communities to buy a seat in Congress.”
Both releases also criticize Mr. Jones’s years at Dragoneer Investment Group, the San Francisco firm, saying he profited from health care companies that were fined for billing and privacy violations, including Carbon Health. At the KCRA debate this month, when Mr. Thompson raised those investments, Mr. Jones called the allegations “completely untrue,” KCRA reported.
Mr. Jones’s defense of his spending is that he is fighting entrenched money with his own. He has refused all PAC contributions, and The Press Democrat found he had kept that pledge through three quarters.
“Standing up to PG&E, the insurance lobby, and Big Tech requires significant resources,” Mr. Jones wrote to The Press Democrat. “The contributions my wife and I have made are substantial, and so are the millions of dollars we have raised from grassroots donors and people across this district. The alternative is an establishment Democrat who has spent nearly 30 years in Congress working on behalf of the same lobbyists and special interests that are spending to keep him there.”
At the debate he turned the funding question back on the incumbent. “That’s no money from Big Tech, unlike my opponent who takes money from Amazon, who takes money from Meta, who takes money from the AI industry, who takes money from the crypto industry,” he said. Mr. Thompson, for his part, argued in the debate that Mr. Jones is “heavily financed by the people who finance data centers.”
The debate over debates
The other running dispute of the general election has been about how often the two men would share a stage. In July, Mr. Jones challenged Mr. Thompson to debates in each of the district’s nine counties plus a televised debate, arguing that nearly half the district’s voters are new to the seat Mr. Thompson holds.
“Prop 50 completely redrew this district last November,” Mr. Jones said then. “It now stretches over 160 miles, from Petaluma to Yuba County, and includes nearly a million people who have never had the chance to hear directly from their member of Congress.”
In August, after accepting KCRA’s invitation to a televised debate, Mr. Jones said, “Mike Thompson seems scared to even do it once.”
The two did meet on KCRA in early October. The Thompson campaign, in its response to The Inquirer, said the candidates have also appeared together at a League of Women Voters forum in Yolo County and at a Yuba-Sutter Farm Bureau forum, where, the Appeal-Democrat reported, both spoke out against data centers.
What each man is selling
Mr. Thompson, a Vietnam veteran and senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, is running on seniority and delivery; at the debate he said he would chair its health subcommittee if Democrats win the House. At the KCRA debate he cited his American Affordability Act, a package of tax measures aimed at housing, utility and health costs, along with $4 million he said he secured to fight the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a vineyard pest, and $9 million in disaster funding for peach growers in Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties.
Mr. Jones is running against what he calls a corporate-funded establishment. His platform includes freezing PG&E rate increases through federal regulators and antitrust enforcement, expanding Medicare to cover vision, dental, hearing aids and in-home care, and taxing artificial intelligence companies. He has won the endorsement of Mr. Riehle, the Republican who finished third in June, and CalMatters has reported that he is courting both progressive voters frustrated with older incumbents and Republicans who feel shut out by the new map.
“You have so many people in America who are fed up with both parties,” Mr. Jones told CalMatters.
The Press Democrat found that through September, Mr. Jones had outspent Mr. Thompson $11.8 million to $4.9 million for the cycle. Voting ends Tuesday. In California, the final count can take weeks.
Beatrix Halloran covers the campaigns, money, ambitions and personalities of Northern California’s congressional delegation, for The Delegation. More from Beatrix Halloran
