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Eric Jones’ Super PAC Hypocrisy

By Sue Greenwald

[Note: this letter first appeared in the Davis Enterprise, here. However, they did not have room to print the first paragraph, which the author asked to be included here].

Eric Jones has been touting his strict opposition to ‘corporate PACs’ over the course of the entire campaign. But Super PACs are worse than corporate PACs, because corporate PACs limit individual donations to $5,000, whereas Super PACs have no limit on individual donations. So Eric Jones, while sanctimoniously abjuring corporate PACs and attacking Thompson for accepting some donations from them, himself not only benefited from his (barely) former partners’ $3.9 million Super PAC, but also personally donated $10,000 to a Super PAC in support of the campaign of one of his tech cronies.

Eric Jones claims to be a progressive congressional candidate who wants to get money out of politics, but his actions speak much louder than his words.

Eric Jones was a big venture capitalist — a partner at Dragoneer Investments — until only one month before he declared for office. He received the vast majority of his outsized war chest from his network of AI/Crypto/tech-related executives and their financiers and his own venture capital fortune. He is also supported by a $3.93 million Super PAC largely funded by his long-term fellow Dragoneer venture capital partners/spouse. Dragoneer is a huge investor in tech and artificial intelligence.

When Jones is criticized about the Dragoneer Super PAC, he defends himself by claiming that he can’t legally stop it, and that he opposes the Citizens United ruling enabling Super PACs.

But wait! We now learn that Eric Jones himself contributed $10,000 to Maine Dream Inc, a Super PAC that supported the Maine gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Bush. Jones knowingly and intentionally skirted the spirit of Maine’s campaign spending limits by exploiting the Citizens’ United loophole.

Jonathan Bush ran against Maine’s environmental regulations and expanded Medicaid program. But did Eric Jones support Bush because Jones is a crypto-Republican? No, more likely because Bush founded a tech-based health billing company, and sat on the board of Innovaccer, a company that Dragoneer was investing in.

In fact, Jones made his largest federal-level contributions to 9 Democrats and all but one, like Bush, were either from or were heavily backed by the tech/AI/crypto special interests, even though they varied in orientation from progressive to centrist.

For example, Jones donated $7,000 to tech-backed centrist Raja Krishnamoorthi, running against progressive Julianna Stratton. And $3,300 to centrist, tech/crypto-backed Sam Liccardo, running against progressive Evan Low. And $7,000 to tech-backed progressive Jake Levine, running against centrist tech-regulator Brad Sherman.

Jones didn’t seem to care where the candidate stood in the policy spectrum, as long as the candidate was backed by the new oligarchs of high tech/AI/crypto.

Jones lacks political history. It also appears that he has no political beliefs except loyalty to the tech/crypto/AI special interests that fund him.

Sue Greenwald is a former Mayor of the City of Davis

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Comments

4 responses to “Eric Jones’ Super PAC Hypocrisy”

  1. George Galamba

    I’m put off by Jones’s negative ads and am not inclined to vote for him. But I’ve seen a lot of posts here telling me why I shouldn’t vote for Jones, but none telling me why I should vote for Thompson. It is would be nice if we could get back to voting for candidates rather than against them.

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      The Press Democrat endorsed Thompson today and had a nice explanation as to why. Here is the part that focuses on the “why Thompson”:

      Thompson, on the other hand, said he has experience working across party lines to bring millions of dollars into his district, especially during times of disaster. He helped secure $9 million in agricultural disaster relief for peach growers following the bankruptcy of Del Monte and the closure of its cannery. These efforts and experiences will be vital as the area heads into an unprecedented El Niño season this winter.

      Thompson also pointed to HR 1 — Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ and views reversing HR 1’s healthcare cuts as a core component of his effort to lead affordability legislation for House Democrats. His first action item after the midterms would be to assume chairmanship of the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.

      Thompson also has a stronger stance on gun control than Jones. While not as polarizing of an issue on the national level — roughly 48% of Americans desire stronger gun control laws — the majority of Californians favor stricter gun control. It’s easy to see why: The US gun homicide rate is 26 times that of other high-income countries and the US gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times that of other high-income countries.

      Thompson, who chairs the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, helped pass and craft the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Signed by President Joe Biden in 2022, the bill was the first major federal gun safety legislation passed in nearly three decades.

      Jones did not have a strong stance on gun control laws, but noted that he would tackle issues that could lead people to use firearms, such as mental health issues, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and post-partum depression.

      As California and the United States head into two more years of a Trump presidency, voters deserve a representative with expertise and experience in Washington, D.C.. We think Jones has great ideas, but we recommend he gain experience at the municipal or county level first; his communities would greatly benefit.

      The Press Democrat endorses Mike Thompson for California’s 4th Congressional District.

      Reply
    2. Sue Greenwald

      In an ideal world, I would agree. But in this case, we know who Thompson is, what he stands for and how he has voted. We can look this up with a quick Google search. But Eric Jones has no record whatsoever. We can’t look up how he has voted. If we relied on what he says about himself, we would come away with the false conclusion that he is just an anti-establishment “businessman” from very humble origins who has “created jobs”, and who is ‘mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.’

      Because Jones has no record, the first order of business is to vet him. Is he really simply the “businessman”, as he described himself on his ballot statement, who wants to get money out of politics?

      There is no way to do this without focusing on who he is, who funds him, who he has supported and what he actually did in his prior life.

      This is doubly important because the tech/AI/crypto sector now represents the largest concentration of wealth in the nation, and its players have been carrying on an active campaign to take over congressional seats, similar to AIPAC. There have been a number of articles about this new phenomenon.

      https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/03/ai-crypto-super-pac-spending-primaries-01062929

      By focusing on Eric Jones, we learn that he comes from the tech/AI/crypto sector and is funded by this sector. He was a partner in a big venture capital firm until only one month before he stepped down to run for Congress. His early AI platform was boilerplate for that of AI-funded candidates. His claim that he wants to get money out of politics does not withstand scrutiny, and his attacks on Mike Thompson’s campaign funding look hypocritical.

      Since Eric Jones has zero political history and has more than twice the money as Thompson due to his tech/AI/crypto backing, the first order of business is vetting this new candidate.

      Reply
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