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Congressional hopeful Eric Jones is testing the theory that voters on the far left and far right have more in common with each other than with Democrats or Republicans.
Jones, a Democrat, is hoping to unite those two ends of the so-called political horseshoe to topple incumbent Rep. Mike Thompson, a fellow Democrat.
The two are facing each other in a district redrawn under Proposition 50 that spans from the wineries of Napa and Sonoma to the rice fields of Yuba and Sutter counties. No Republican won enough votes in the June primary to advance to the November election in the heavily Democratic-leaning district.
Jones, 35, is betting that he can build a winning coalition of anti-establishment voters by courting both progressive Democrats who are fed up with their party’s aging incumbents and disaffected Republicans, many of whom feel disenfranchised by last year’s Democratic gerrymandering.
“You have so many people in America who are fed up with both parties,” Jones said in an interview. “It’s just about their political gains and keeping power and dividing us. And people are sick and tired of that approach to politics and government.”
The trick for Jones will be making that message feel authentic rather than idealistic — a stretch for a self-funding multimillionaire political newbie. Jones, a philanthropist and former venture capitalist, has contributed more than $5.1 million of his own money to his campaign so far.
That challenge proved to be too much for the self-funding progressive billionaire Tom Steyer, who earlier this year failed to advance in the governor’s race despite sinking more than $213 million into his campaign.
The new 4th Congressional District includes more conservative parts of Colusa, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter and Yuba counties, many of whose voters were previously represented by the late Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa and his successor, Rep. James Gallagher. Still, Thompson easily won the primary with 41% of the vote, followed by Jones with 22% and Republican Ray Riehle with 20%.
Riehle recently endorsed Jones and said he’ll help him build support among Republicans. It’s an unusual alliance that Jones hopes could be enough to push him past Thompson.
“At the end of the day, 60% of the voters in June voted for someone other than Thompson,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant working with the Jones campaign. “This Prop. 50 district could be the reason why Thompson loses.”
Conflict over money and motives
Thompson, 75, a Vietnam War veteran and senior member of the House’s powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, has represented much of the current district for 27 years. He has questioned Jones’ motives for seeking election there and said that Jones, who moved to Napa in 2021, is leveraging personal wealth and relationships with wealthy supporters to “buy” the 4th District seat.
“If I’m doing a poor job, why isn’t someone from our district running? Why does someone have to airdrop in from San Francisco?” Thompson said in an interview. “I think the short answer is, I’m not doing a bad job.”
Jones disputes Thompson’s characterization of his motives.
He said he and his wife moved to Napa in 2021 after their son, Owen, was born with a serious heart defect that required emergency life-saving surgery. The near loss of their child “prompted a whole bunch of life changes,” Jones said, including moving from San Francisco to a quieter and slower-paced place that is still within driving distance of Owen’s doctors at UCSF.
“I just want people to understand that we care deeply about this place even though we are brand new, by all accounts,” Jones told a small group of potential supporters recently at a backyard meet-and-greet.
Jones has painted Thompson and the Democratic establishment as corrupt and beholden to “corporate cronyism” for accepting campaign donations from the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies and — most notably — Pacific Gas & Electric whose faulty equipment sparked several of the devastating wildfires that burned through Napa and Sonoma in 2017.
Thompson has accepted $20,000 from the PG&E Employee Energy PAC in his last two reelection bids, according to federal campaign finance records from 2023 to 2026.
“I take contributions from employee PACs,” Thompson said, pointing out that PG&E employs several thousand constituents in his district. “I’m not embarrassed for taking those.”
He said he has pushed PG&E to invest in more renewable energy jobs in the district and also has gone to bat for wildfire survivors, including a successful effort with LaMalfa to exempt California wildfire victims’ relief funds from federal income taxes.
“I’m not afraid to take these guys on if they’re wrong,” Thompson said.
Fresh ideas vs. institutional knowledge
Jones, whose bouncy golden retriever energy matches his optimism, seems to have thought of a policy fix for everything: His website features 27 proposed policies that range from eliminating federal income taxes for those earning $150,000 or less to implementing a 12-year term limit on members of Congress.
Whether those ideas are realistic goals is a different question, and not one Jones seems too concerned about answering with much specificity. At the backyard event last week, multiple attendees noted that Jones wouldn’t be able to accomplish any of those ideas alone.
“Who do you know in Washington who you’re going to work with?” asked Russell Joy, a wine executive who said he attended the event with his wife to learn more about Jones after they saw a negative ad about him.
Jones ticked off the names of several junior members of California’s congressional delegation, including Reps. Ro Khanna, Sam Liccardo and Lateefah Simon, none of whom serve in senior House leadership or are poised to chair committees should Democrats reclaim the House.
Joy, a registered Republican, said he and his wife Debi have “religiously” voted for Thompson, primarily since he’s always been good to the wine industry. They also like that the congressmember grew up in and raised his family in the area. (Thompson still lives in the family home in St. Helena that his great-grandfather purchased in the 1890s.)
Jones’ other ideas include expanding Medicare to cover vision, dental, hearing aids and in-home care; establishing a refundable $10,000 monthly tax credit for working-class households; and seeding a “National Housing Construction Bank” to boost housing stock by providing low-cost loans to builders.
“Eric is just brilliant,” said Lisa Seran, a progressive local activist who co-founded Indivisible Napa and has been supporting Jones since before he announced his campaign. In contrast to Jones, Seran said, Thompson is “not an original creative thinker, and never has been.”
Seran said she applauds Jones for self-funding his campaign rather than taking corporate donations.
“Here’s somebody who made his own money and is willing to invest his own money to try and be of service,” Seran said. “Mike can’t say that, and so he maligns Eric for doing just that.”
To pay for all his proposals, Jones has vowed to increase the corporate tax rate and close loopholes, including offshore tax havens — massive tax changes that would be all but dead on arrival under President Donald Trump. Even if a Democrat won the White House in 2028, a law to significantly hike corporate tax rates would still be a tough sell.
Joy said he was impressed with Jones’ breadth of knowledge across policy topics, but he’s still deliberating.
“Mike flies back almost every week to be with his constituents,” Joy told CalMatters. “It seems like he’s had Napa’s back.”
Thompson touts his long track record of bringing home federal money, notably for flood prevention and wildfire resiliency, as evidence that he has the relationships and seniority needed to deliver results. Recently, he helped secure emergency aid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for California peach growers who were left in a bind after food processing giant Del Monte went bankrupt and closed its canning facility in Modesto.
Ranjit Davit, a farmer in Sutter County who lost the remaining five years of his 20-year contract with Del Monte after the bankruptcy, said Thompson quickly penned a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins that was instrumental in getting USDA to quickly process aid applications and release payments to farmers. More than 40 other lawmakers signed the letter.
“You need the person that has the reputation in D.C., and that’s what Mike carries,” Davit said. “He’s a well-liked man there. And so, I’m not saying that Eric Jones couldn’t be a good congressman. He very well could be. But you know, you start at the bottom again.”
Tim McDonald, a former wine industry marketing executive and co-host of the Napa meet-and-greet said after his long tenure, it’s time for Thompson to make way for younger leaders.
“You’re not supposed to do this job until the day you die,” McDonald said. “You’re supposed to pass the baton to the next generation.”
Thompson said his age is not an issue and that he’s “as here mentally as I’ve ever been.” When in D.C., he said he rides 20 miles on a stationary bike, completes 400 crunches and lifts weights almost every morning.
“My age and my health are top drawer,” he told CalMatters.
Where do Republican voters go?
Since the primary when he sought to appeal primarily to progressive and young Democrats, Jones has pivoted to build up his centrist and bipartisan bona fides. He has praised Gallagher and appeared at several Republican events, including Gallagher’s St. Patrick’s Day fundraiser and the annual Lincoln Dinner in Sutter County.
He has tried especially hard to build relationships with voters like Davit who were redrawn into the 4th District from Gallagher’s district.
Jones says he supported Prop. 50 as part of California’s effort to counteract Texas’ gerrymandering. But post-primary, he has emphasized that Prop. 50 was Democrats’ “solemn duty” to protect democracy and said he was “extremely disappointed” and even “ashamed” of how the party turned it into a “celebration of disenfranchisement.”
“I can tell you that as the congressman for the new area, no voter is going to be disenfranchised,” Thompson said. “I work hard for my district and the people who live in my district.”
Jones’ appeal didn’t feel genuine to Charlie Hoppin, a Sutter County rice farmer who, like Davit, was redrawn into Thompson’s district by Prop. 50.
Hoppin said he encouraged his adult children, who are more politically conservative than he is, to support Thompson because the congressman worked closely with LaMalfa and understands the district’s agriculture needs. He reasoned that if they’re going to be represented by a Democrat, “at least this one works with us and has always worked with us. And he picks up the phone when your dad calls him.”
Of Jones, he said, “I don’t have the feeling that he’s centrist at all. I think he’s smart enough that he knows what he’s supposed to say.”
But Jones’ calls to find common ground and reject tribal partisanship resonate with David Shaw, a Republican member of the Yuba City Council and financial planner who was close friends with LaMalfa.
Shaw was impressed that Jones immediately accepted his invitation to Republicans’ annual Lincoln Dinner in Sutter County. Conversely, Thompson’s 27-year voting record has demonstrated that he won’t break from the Democratic Party line, he said.
And while Shaw said he appreciated Thompson using his leverage to help peach growers obtain emergency aid, he felt that the intervention was “too little, too late” and all in service of winning votes, not necessarily finding a long-term solution to help growers in the district.
“I’m willing to give Eric a chance,” Shaw said.
