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Super PAC has now poured over 1.1 million dollars into ads supporting Eric Jones

The latest venture-capital funded mailer is downright Orwellian

By Roberta Millstein

Mailer received 27 April 2026. Annotated by the author.

Eric Jones’s campaign to unseat Mike Thompson in Congressional District 4 has repeatedly promised not to take money from special interests and PACs.  As I have already documented in detail (see earlier articles here and here), that promise is essentially meaningless.  A former partner of the Dragoneer Investment Group, Jones has received large individual donations and repeated campaign advertising funded by massive donations to the New Leadership Now Super PAC from his fellow venture capitalists, including a huge donation from the family of Dragoneer’s founder, Marc Stad.

Expenditures for ads in support of Eric Jones’s campaign (mailers, TV, internet, etc.) from New Leadership Now currently exceed 1.1 million dollars, as this screenshot from the FEC website shows [UPDATE: over $1.33 million as of May 9, 2026]:

The numbers in the right-hand column, the expenditures in support of Jones’s campaign (including ads opposing Thomson) add to $1,107,203.00. Screenshot from the FEC, https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?two_year_transaction_period=2026&data_type=efiling&committee_id=C00900993&is_notice=true&most_recent=true

The most recent mailer sent across the sprawling District 4 from the New Leadership Now Super PAC, shown above, is truly Orwellian.  On the same side as the required legal declaration, “PAID FOR BY NEW LEADERSHIP NOW,” it states “Corrupt Corporate Interests are Used to Buying Politicians.”  I guess we are supposed to think that other corporate interests are corrupt, but not those who are behind the Super PAC?

On the other side of the mailer, it states “Eric is the only Democrat in this race who isn’t taking a single dollar from corporate PACs.  He knows that if YOU take their money THEY want favors… The only people Eric Jones answers to is us!”  So, wait a second.  Yes, technically speaking, Jones has not “taken” the money from the corporate Super PAC.  But it’s funded by his former corporate co-workers.  So, who will Jones answer to — who is “us”? The people of District 4?  Or the people who funded the mailer, who do not live in our district and whose corporate interests include the AI firm Anthropic (whose AI recently went rogue and deleted software and user data), Uber, and Spotify, companies who lobby the government to avoid regulation? What favors would they get?

Mailer received 27 April 2026. Annotated by the author.

The mailer is telling us to follow the money. The huge sums of money lead back to Dragoneer Investment Group.  The interests of this out-of-district venture capital firm are not the interests of District 4 citizens. 

Believe what mailer says.  Corrupt corporate interests buy politicians.  People who are bought by corporate interests do not answer to us, the citizens of District 4.

I have heard the refrain “but Thompson takes PAC money too!”  Yes, he does.  But Jones is claiming to be different.  My point is that he is not different in this respect, although he is different in at least one other respect: he has no track record to give us some idea of how he will actually vote.  We know how Thompson will vote, but Jones could very well be planning on pulling a Fetterman on us, running as a progressive but then moving to the right if elected.

That’s certainly the direction the money is pointing in.

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Comments

18 responses to “Super PAC has now poured over 1.1 million dollars into ads supporting Eric Jones”

  1. Gilbert Coville

    OMG, there was another mailer from “New Leadership Now” just today, after this post came out.

    Reply
  2. Ron O

    I just received yet another mailer from Eric Jones’ campaign, which literally states “Democrat Eric Jones isn’t taking a single dollar”.

    What a lying sack-of-sh*t. And who exactly paid for that mailer?

    Also, as Don Shor recently asked, what is this guy’s position on the YIMBY’s “California Forever”.

    Reply
  3. Ron O

    Though I guess I should say, “on behalf of Eric Jones”. I’m *sure* that he is totally unaware/innocent of the funds spent on his behalf.

    Reply
  4. Cosmo Ortega

    Hi — Roberta I like your research! It’s good.

    In your last post, you showed us it is funded by Marc Stad. I looked him up. Turns out he’s a Democratic superdonor who has funded the DNC, DCCC, Kamala, etc.

    Personally, I believe we need to have billionaires on our side who are defending the progressive challenging the establishment and trying to take on corporate interests, corruption, and money in politics.

    It is very different to have someone personally use their money to stand up for good to counter corporate greed — then it is to be funded by the corporate interest interests themselves.

    It takes money to compete with money. And, sadly, it takes money to get money out of politics.

    We can’t keep bringing knives to an all-out war.

    https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=Marc+Stad&sort=D&type=donors

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      To continue your metaphor: It’s like Jones is bringing in the big guns but keeping them hidden, then castigating the other guy for using big guns. Then when he gets called out for his big guns, his defenders (in this case you) say “oh, but he’s got the good big gun.”

      I stand by what I’ve said. It’s hypocritical to call out the other candidate for their corporate PAC money and then on the down low be the beneficiary of out-of-district corporate PAC money yourself. And it’s not a small amount… more than $1.1 million so far.

      I appreciate your kind remarks about my research. Considering the three articles I’ve written, it’s taken me a lot of time to learn (much less write about and document!) that Jones was a venture capitalist for over 12 years, that he was a partner, that he has many maxed out individual donations from other venture capitalists and high tech types, that his Super PAC was funded by some of the same venture capitalists, that it’s put huge sums of money toward ads for Jones and against Thompson.

      None of that was at all evident from any of his campaign materials.

      Now, on top of that, I’m supposed to do research on all of his donors and who they have donated to? No. I don’t get paid for this. I’m just a citizen and a voter. It should be evident who a person is from their political track record, except Jones doesn’t have one. And he’s keeping things hidden and being hypocritical.

      It’s hard for me to trust someone under those circumstances.

      Reply
      1. Roberta Millstein

        Actually, it’s worse than what I said above because he is also denying having a big gun.

    2. Sue Greenwald

      What did he tell the out-of-district hedge fund, venture capitalist and big tech folks to get them to cough up the big bucks? They don’t just give away this kind of money for nothing, especially to people who live far from their district.

      I read Jones’ campaign website, and it wasn’t particularly progressive. Nothing about universal health care, nothing about decreasing the military budget, nothing about ending the war on Iran or about Gaza. His “issues” were carefully crafted not to offend the special interests. In fact, he told a newspaper that his hero was Teddy Roosevelt, who is a darling of the war hawks and of Republicans. Lowering perscription drug prices? That was Hillary Clinton and Donald Trumps issue. Maternal health, which is surely important, has already been tackled big-time by California, which has already dramatically lowered maternal mortality in one of the states most impressive achievements.

      I am VERY put off by this campaign.

      Reply
  5. Sue Greenwald

    Thanks for the important research, Roberta. I agree with you. Even before this Super PAC revelation, I had looked up Jones’ first two campaign finance filing reports on the website, and was shocked. He had already raised around $2 million, and much of it consisted of maximum ( $3,500 and $7,000) contributions from hedge fund and Silicon Valley tech-related employees. THEN I received a mailer saying he was the ONLY candidate that didn’t receive money from special interests. I was very angry; I felt he had lied to me. And now I read about the SuperPac. I had been told that progressives were backing Jones because he didn’t take PAC money.

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      Thanks, Sue. Yes, I go back and forth about which is worse, his funding sources or his deception/hypocrisy about his funding sources. I think it might be the latter.

      Reply
  6. Joe Verseput

    Roberta, thanks for the detailed research on the Super PAC spending. I do hope for a bit more balance in the coverage moving forward.
    Eric Jones’s campaign takes no corporate PAC or lobbyist money, in contrast to Rep. Thompson’s long record of direct contributions from corporate PACs in insurance, agribusiness, finance, energy, and other sectors.
    New Leadership Now is an independent expenditure committee — Jones cannot coordinate with or control it. Its major backer is a longtime Democratic donor who has supported progressive causes, including the UCSF pediatric palliative care center (all publicly available on OpenSecrets and FEC filings).
    That said, it would be helpful to apply the same scrutiny to all outside spending. Article One PAC, with its more opaque structure, has also been active supporting Thompson. I know raising concerns tied to AIPAC can be difficult and is sometimes unfairly labeled as anti-Semitism. As someone with Jewish kids, I encourage an open and honest dialogue, while understanding the sensitivity and strongly opposing any form of anti-Semitism. But we still need to highlight dark money influence in our politics regardless of the source.
    Jones has outraised Thompson with individual donors and self-funding while pledging to reject corporate PAC influence. Many voters view this as a real difference and welcome the opportunity to back a reformer taking on the incumbent model.

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      Joe, thanks for returning to comment. Please understand that this is a blog where members of the community, including myself, post articles on topics of their choosing. It is not a news outlet, so we are not seeking “balance“. That being said, I first learned about your brother‘s campaign through a couple of posts in support of him by a different author. I became concerned because it seemed as though there was a lot of vagueness in why the person was supporting Jones. That and some other things I read led me to dig deeper.

      I think your brother‘s campaign has done a very thorough job of talking about the PAC money that Thompson has taken, as has the Super PAC that is discussed in this article. However, I am not aware of anyone else who has written about the Super PAC in support of your brother which is why I wrote about it. If he finds the New Leadership Now Super PAC and its spending over $1.1 million for ads in support of him to be objectionable, he could make a public statement saying so. Until he does, I can only assume that he does not find it sufficiently problematic, which raises questions about whether he is really opposed to Citizens United after all.

      And even without the super PAC money, there are still the many maxed out donations from venture capitalist and high-tech executives. I find those concerning as well, especially in the absence of a political track record that would give voters more information about where he really stands.

      Finally, this would all be much less of a deal if your brother were not running on a plank of “I don’t take money from special interests and corporate PACs”. That brings up the issue of corporate donors and makes it a topic of conversation. His claim really does seem deceptive. And I am not the only one who thinks so.

      Reply
      1. Joe Verseput

        Thank you for the response and for engaging on this.
        I appreciate that this is a community blog, but readers still benefit from fuller context. My brother has been consistent in opposing the corrosive influence of big money in politics, including Citizens United. He has criticized corporate PACs and the way lobbyists and special interests effectively write legislation for politicians who take their money.
        Corporate PACs and lobbyists are literally structured to gain access and push laws favoring their industries — that’s the system Eric wants to change. Maxed-out contributions from individuals (even venture capitalists or tech executives) are apples-to-oranges compared to that. They’re disclosed personal donations from citizens exercising their rights, without the same bundled special-interest machinery or expectation of policy payoffs. Eric’s campaign doesn’t have the corporate PAC backing or DC insider setup that many traditional candidates like Thompson do.
        It’s telling that there’s heavy focus on Eric’s individual donors and an independent Super PAC (which campaigns cannot coordinate with), yet far less criticism of Thompson’s direct PAC contributions. If the concern is really “money in politics,” why the one-sided lens? It comes across as being comfortable with the way Washington has long been run — corporate access, lobbyist-written bills, and all.
        On experience and policy: Eric brings substantial real-world and policy experience, including contributing to healthcare legislation for the Biden White House and being called in to advise on preventing the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. His platform is clear and public — fair taxes, protecting family healthcare, making housing affordable, ending government corruption, and restoring economic opportunity for working families. These aren’t vague; they’re detailed on his site and in his outreach. He has a strong record of results in the private and public sectors that voters can evaluate.
        Eric’s campaign is focused on working families, not special interests. Voters can review both candidates’ full funding disclosures, voting records (for the incumbent), and policy proposals and decide for themselves. Selective narratives don’t change the distinctions he’s drawn or the reforms he supports.
        Thanks again for the dialogue.

      2. Roberta Millstein

        I feel like I am repeating myself a bit now, but here goes:

        1. I raised the issue of donors because Jones raised it for Thompson. I am showing that what Jones has said is deceptive and hypocritical, that he is in fact very tied to special interests and corporate donors, including a Super PAC.

        2. I think the different sort of donations made to Thompson and to Jones is a distinction without a difference. It’s big corporate money in both cases, and someone has to go digging to figure it out — and then there is only so much one can glean in the end.

        3. There has to be an increased focus on donors when there is not much else to go on, i.e., a political track record. I don’t know what “contributing to healthcare legislation for the Biden White House and being called in to advise on preventing the Silicon Valley Bank collapse” amounts to. But I do know what being a venture capitalist amounts to, and it generally isn’t in favor of the average citizen voter.

        4. I’m not going to get into a back-and-forth comparing donors and endorsers; I’ll just point readers to this long list of endorsers who, taken together (especially the organizations at the bottom), don’t quite amount to the way Thompson is being characterized: https://www.mikethompsonforcongress.com/endorsements

        I ask again: Will your brother publicly condemn and disassociate himself from the Super PAC that is spending well over a million dollars (more already since I wrote this article) in ads to support him and oppose Thompson, as someone who is truly opposed to Citizens United would do?

  7. Sue Greenwald

    I should add that the reason that I looked up Eric Jones’ campaign finance report was that I looked at his website after he was promoted as a progressive alternative. I was surprised that he didn’t mention universal health care or Medicare for All and he didn’t mention anything about decreasing the military budget or war. His website was bland and fully establishment-approved, with mostly vague comments like a “commitment to lower health costs”, or things he would have no control over, like “crack down on PG&E’s” high prices. I was told that I should “talk with him”. No. He has to write it down on his main website, or I have to assume that he says different things to different people.

    After I noticed his hedge fund, high-tech donor base, I Googled “Palantir” on a hunch. Sure enough, there was a $7,000 donation from a Palantir employee. I mentioned it to a group chat I was involved with, and someone in it said that others had complained to the campaign about this donation, and the campaign had explained that Jones didn’t realize he had received a donation from “a former Palantir employee”, and that they gave the money to charity after they were told about it. But when I looked the employee up on linked-in last month, the employee had referred to himself as a current Palantir employee only a few weeks earlier. So, according to this second-hand account that I was given, the campaign wasn’t truthful that the donor no longer worked for Palantir at the time of the complaints.

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      Sue, I went down the exact same path as you. It was the vagueness and tepidness of the promises on his web page that I first found concerning. And like you, I was told to just meet with him, and like you, I don’t want to hear promises made to me personally, I want it in writing. Even better, I want a political track record, which he does not have. Then when you add in these corporate donations and corporate-linked Super PAC… it’s just too much.

      Reply
  8. Kathy Sea

    I really commend Roberta for your diligent work because I have been wading through those same very dense weeds trying to find information on Eric Jones after I saw him at a panel held by Indivisible with Thompson and others also in attendance.
    Personally, I found him very lacking in control of his self presentation at points. He was shouting and saying he was angry quite off the general tenor of the event. Once, he got up and stood towards the front of the stage saying that he couldn’t answer, wouldn’t take say anything on one of those “gotcha“ questions because people would go after him. I’m not making this up, anybody can go and see the video from indivisible Sonoma County.
    Then another way to evaluate Eric, with his lack of background and experience, would be trying to understand what his impulses were that drove him to seek higher office, political elective office. Was he involved in any politically oriented groups or events at any time and anywhere in his personal history? Since college, even in college?I tried to research his nonprofit. As a private foundation it does not have to disclose anything about how it spends its money or who’s on its board or anything else. Again, it’s area where there could be transparency, but there is not. His campaign literature somewhere says it was founded in 2021, but the 501(c)(3) designation was only issued in 2026 according to what is available on the IRS.
    So that would be another way to understand why Eric Jones is in this race. If we had a sense of what his personal history had been, what his commitments had been who he had donated to what causes he had supported in all those years that he was amassing a fortune beyond conception of most Americans, especially of many of the people who live in the new fourth district. There’s nothing about his personal political opinions. His online history appears to have been scrubbed? Maybe that’s just very common these days. There are only, as you pointed out, aspirational carefully worded stands on issues of key importance to everyone that are designed to influence vote.
    I’m also deeply uncomfortable based on how you describe them with the other group that he founded and their process and their apparent goal as the kind of new iteration of pervasive propaganda. That is the last thing we need.
    Again, I really appreciate all the information that you’ve pulled together. I will continue to follow this guy, even though he’s running against my soon-to-be former congressman, because I don’t like ‘the cut of his jib’ as my grandpa used to say and I’m hoping despite his campaign largesse, direct or indirect, that he is not successful in this primary.

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      Thank you for this great comment, Kathy. I particularly appreciate hearing your experiences with Indivisible Sonoma County. As you say, there just isn’t much out there about him (which is what motivated me to write these articles), but I did find some other reports about odd or inconsistent behavior at various public events.

      And I didn’t know that the 501(c)(3) designation for his nonprofit was only issued in 2026. There is a huge lack of transparency there, as you say.

      Finally, I can’t help but think that so many people like what he has to say exactly because he founded a group to test various messages and how they would play with different audiences — then he deployed the tested messages. As you say, that’s the last thing we need, but so many people want to take him at his word. I just think there are too many red flags for that, in the absence of a track record.

      I guess I’m preaching to the choir, though! Thanks again.

      Reply
  9. The billionaire venture-capitalist backed Super PAC supporting Eric Jones cites time travelers – Davisite

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