Preface & Recap on Chapter One: Contributions & Expenditures in 4th C.D.
[Note: Chapter 2 follows this short preface and recap]
By F.E.C. Nerd
Hopefully, you have taken the lessons learned from Chapter One and have done some exploration on your own. It will be helpful to have those research skills honed because new additional disclosures will be forthcoming very soon. Those will cover the period from July 1, 2026, through September 30, 2026. That’s three whole, long months of fundraising and spending. I also want to point out a couple other customizable search methods you can try.
Step One: Log into your favorite Internet browser. Then go to:
https://www.fec.gov/data/browse-data/?tab=candidates
Step Two: Scroll down the page towards the bottom and click on the link for “House of Representatives Candidates.”
Step Three: So that you know how to search for any House candidate use the search box — “Candidate Name or ID” in the upper left corner. Type in: “Jones, Eric”. A drop-down list of several “Jones” candidates will appear. Select the one for “Jones, Eric H6CA04222”. That will take you to the link for Eric Jones’ campaign reporting.
Step Four: Scroll right to get into the main display and click on the “Jones, Eric” link that is active. This will take you to where we start to get to the substantive data.
Step Five: Scroll to the left and click on the dark-blue box “Compare to opposing candidates.”
This will bring up another page of data (as shown below) for the main three candidates in the June Primary. Mike Thompson finished first, but Eric Jones narrowly bested Raymond Riehle, for second place and onto November’s General Election run-off. We will return to this screen again as we do our research.
Note the data under “Cash on hand” as of 6/30/2026. Note that Eric Jones reported just $665,718.27. That is nowhere near enough to buy all the TV ad-time to run his AI-generated ads attacking his opponent. So, we can expect some large contributions to be reported when the 7/1/26 – 9/30/26 disclosures are filed later this week.
Step Six: Click on “Jones, Eric” and then once the page loads, click on the button on the right “Browse Receipts” and get the drop-down search categories in the left-hand column. We spent some time in Chapter One, Lesson Two searching these, but I wanted to point out another type of search.
Step Seven: Scroll down in the left-hand column and at “Employer” let’s insert a couple names instead of the more general terms “inc” and “llc” that we used in Lesson Two. Enter “Anthropic” and click the right > button and we find that donors affiliated with Anthropic contributed a total of $7,500 all of it on 9/1/2025 — 8 days prior to Eric Jones filing his Statement of Candidacy.
Now enter “Palantir” in the search box . (Palantir showed up in one of our previous searches of contributors as being a client of one of the venture capital firms whose personnel were donating to Eric Jones’ campaign). Click on the right > button and we see that one of Palantir’s personnel contributed the double-maximum ($7,000) to Eric Jones on 12/27/25. Palantir works with ICE.
You can repeat this exercise to look for other personnel of other “employers” (i.e., companies) you are interested in.
Chapter Two: Super PAC Spending for Ads, Mail, Social Media, etc.
At the conclusion of Chapter One, I suggested that you pay attention to the “paid for by” information on mailers, texts and TV ads. These provide important clues to the sources of funding paying for those campaign communications. Let’s start with the most obvious one:
LESSON ONE: NEW LEADERSHIP NOW SUPER PAC
Below is a pro-Eric Jones campaign mail piece sent out by New Leadership Now.
Step One: We need to return to the basic F.E.C. webpage for campaign data which is at FEC.gov then click on the “Campaign Finance Data” link in the top bar. Then enter “New Leadership Now” into the search box for “Committees” and you should have a screen like this:
Step Two: Click on the search button and it will bring up this information:
There is only one committee named New Leadership Now — an “Unauthorized Super PAC”.
Step Three: Click next on the “New Leadership Now” link to take you to its campaign reporting. If you scroll down to the right you will see the “Cash on hand” as of 6/30/2026. Note that it is just $5,615.83!! Given their spending (see below) since 6/30/26, there must be quite a lot of additional contributions to research when the new report is filed later this week.
Step Four: Click on the New Leadership Now link to bring up more details. You should see a screen like the one below.
Step Five: Click on the “Browse receipts” button in the upper right-hand corner. We see there were 21 total contributions as of the 6/30/2026 reporting period. Only a very few were less than $10,000. One single contribution was $1.5 MILLION. A number were $100,000 or more.
Step Six: With the skills you have learned thus far, you can research who these contributors are and what might be their interests. Clicking on the + button will bring up each contributor’s cumulative total; so that you can check each of them out. Below are a few examples, but there are only 21 (and one gave more than once).
Step Seven: Because Elisa Stad is the largest donor, let’s click the + button next to “Stad, Elisa” on 05/08/2026 $500,000 contribution. We see she made a total of $2 MILLION in contributions to New Leadership Now Super PAC, as shown below.
The first $1.5 MILLION was donated on 2/17/2026. For “Occupation” and “Employer” she reports “Self”. News reports have disclosed that Elisa Stad and her husband Marc Stad own two expensive mansions in the Montecito area of Santa Barbara as well as a mansion in San Francisco.
Marc Stad is the “Founder” of Dragoneer Investment Group where Eric Jones was Partner prior to leaving just before starting his campaign to unseat Mike Thompson. Both he and Elisa Stad gave the double-maximum of ($7,000) each to Eric Jones’ campaign on 9/8/2025, the day before Eric Jones filed his Statement of Candidacy.
When Elisa Stad made the contributions on 9/8/2025, her “Occupation” was listed as “Not Employed” as shown below:
Scroll up and down the New Leadership Now contributions list, clicking on the + button beside each contribution (only Elisa Stad gave more than once). Below is an abbreviated description of the information on several of these contributors. This is to save space from having too many screenshots, but you should check them out for yourself.
Bologna, Benjamin: He was a big contributor to Eric Jones’ campaign fund. Look at Step Nine in Lesson Two — he’s the one who gave $10,000. He is listed as the “Portfolio Manager” for Citadel Americas LLC in San Francisco. Citadel Americas is reputed to be the “Most profitable hedge fund manager of all time” according to its website.
Gillespie, Dan: He is the second-largest contributor to New Leadership Now Super PAC, he gave $400,000 on 5/25/3036. His Occupation/Employer is: Partner, Dragoneer Investment Group, San Francisco.
Fradin, Russ: He gave $10,000 to New Leadership Now Super PAC. You may recall from Lesson Two, Step Thirteen that he and “Fradin, Carin” both gave double the maximum ($7,000 each) to Eric Jones on 8/26/2025, nearly three weeks before Eric Jones’ Statement of Candidacy. Russel Fradin is Chief Executive Officer of Larridin. Carin Fradin is listed as “Not Employed” and both are in Hillsborough, CA. You may also recall from Chapter One, Lesson Two, Step Thirteen that Larradin is focused on AI.
Laplanche, Renaud: Renaud Laplanche is CEO of Upgrade, Inc. in San Francisco. In addition to giving $5,000 to New Leadership Now Super PAC, Laplanche was also a really big donor to Eric Jones’ campaign committee as we learned in Lesson Two, Step Ten, having made three contributions totaling $14,000 on 2/02/2026. Upgrade is in the on-line personal loans business.
Middleman, Jared: He also gave to Eric Jones’ campaign (see Lesson Two, Step Fourteen), in addition to this $50,000 donation to New Leadership Now Super PAC on 05/28/2026. Jared Middleman and Veronica Middleman, both of San Francisco, each gave double maximum ($7,000) contributions (total of $14,000) to Eric Jones’ campaign on 09/05/2026 — four days prior to Jones filing his Statement of Candidacy. Jared Middleman is listed as an “Investor” employed by Dragoneer Investment Group. Veronica Middelman is listed as “Not Employed.”
Coulter, Jim: Jim Coulter donated $100,000 to New Leadership Now Super PAC on 5/28/2026. He is listed as “Founding Partner” of TPG in Fort Worth, Texas. Interestingly, a James Coulter gave double maximum ($7,000) to Eric Jones’ campaign on 9/8/2025, the day before Jones’ Statement of Candidacy was filed. James Coulter is listed as “Executive Chairman” of Tarrant Capital IP, LLC, in Fort Worth, Texas. A check on-line indicates that these two businesses are one and the same, focused on venture capital activities.
Whether Jim Coulter and James Coulter are the same individual, who knows. But there is a total of $114,000 going into efforts to help Eric Jones get elected emanating from Ft. Worth.
Trujillo, David: David Trujillo gave $100,00 to New Leadership Now PAC on 5/27/2026, the day before Jim Coulter. But Jim is in Ft. Worth and David Trujillo is in the San Francisco office of TPG, and is listed as a “Partner” in the campaign reporting.
Nathoo, Amir: Gave $10,000 to New Leadership Now Super PAC on 05/13/2026. Amir Nathoo is listed as CEO of Outschool. On 3/31/2026 Amir Nathoo gave $3,500 to Eric Jones’ campaign. On the same date, Kristy Nathooo also gave $3,500 to Eric Jones’ campaign. In Chapter One, Lesson Two, Step Eleven, we learned that Kristy Nathoo is “Partner Emerita” at “Y Combinator” and we learned that firm’s investments include: Open AI, Scale AI, and Kalshi. Also included is FLOCK Security, which Y Combinator lists as one of its “Top Companies” as shown:
Duca, Maurice: Maurice Duca is another major contributor to New Leadership Now Super PAC, having donated $250,000 on 4/14/2026. He is listed as “Partner” with “IGSB.” So, what is IGSB? A search on-line found the following posts:
Zaki, Kareem: Kareem Zaki gave $25,000 to New Leadership Now Super PAC on 05/26/2026. Kareem Zaki is listed as “Investor” with “Thrive.”
It turns out that Joshua Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, a well-known figure. Joshua Kushner, through Thrive Capital has become wealthy, in part because of a “bet” on OpAI. Kareem Zaki is shown on-line as being a “Partner” or “Investor” in Thrive Capital in New York City. Kareem Zaki and his wife Racquel Zaki are reported to have purchased a $26 Million home in Miami, Florida. On-line profiles of Joshua Kushner state he is a “minority owner” of the Miami Heat, NBA team.
Looking at Eric Jones’ campaign reports, we find that both Kareem Zaki and his wife Racquel Zaki, made double-maximum ($7,000) contributions to Eric Jones on 9/8/2025, the day before Eric Jones filed his Statement of Candidacy.
You may go through the other contributors to New Leadership Now Super PAC to discover your own interesting facts about its financing. If you click on the + button next to each (separately) you will see that not one dime of New Leadership Now Super PAC’s funding came from CD4.
Step Eight: Turn now to how New Leadership Now Super PAC spent this multi-million-dollar largess? To do that, you to return to its basic campaign finance webpage — the one at Step Four. This time scroll down on that page to find the “Disbursements” portion (below the area in the Step Four screenshot). Once there, scroll down and click on “Independent Expenditures.” There will be multiple pages of data, the first of which looks like this:
Here is a screenshot of a portion of the second page showing 31-60 of 63 total entries.
As you can see a huge amount was spent to oppose Mike Thompson, but also a large amount to support Eric Jones. (An example of the latter is the mailer showing the “sender identification” that is included near the beginning of this lesson.). This is how the money was spent up through 6/30/2026 — it was filed in “regularly scheduled reports” as you can see from the next screenshot of the left-hand column of the Disbursements disclosures.
Note, at the top there are two buttons; one says “Processed” and the other says “Raw.” Scroll down to “Report Type” and you see there are different types of reports — that occur on different schedules. Try clicking on “24- and 48-Hour Reports” and see what appears. The screenshot below reflects spending on electioneering communications by New Leadership Now Super PAC after the last Regularly Scheduled report through 6/30/2026. You can see how much has been spent over the summer. They obviously came up with additional funds beyond the $5,615.83!! “cash on hand” on 6/30/2026. Looking at 9/1/2026 through 9/9/2026, the total expenditures against Mike Thompson were $992, 308.
Step Nine: Since the screenshot’s most recent expenditure shows 9/28/2026, how do we know if there have been more continuing into October? That’s our next search. Go back to the basic New Leadership Now campaign reporting webpage. Now, scroll down the left-hand column and click on “FILINGS” and the screen should look like this:
Next, click on “24- and 48-hour reports.” You should see a screen that looks like the one below that shows numerous reports of expenditures from early September through early October:
However, the October reports each say they are “Amendments” of prior reports. Click on the expenditure dated 9/28/2026; it is the most recent “Original” report filed, the other more recent ones say “Amendment.” You should see this screen:
Now click on the hot link “Schedule E (Independent Expenditures)” to bring up the detailed info.
The total listed above for “Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought” = $1,377,083.72.
But this makes no sense IF we are looking at the entire calendar year, because if you click on the report filed on 6/1/2026, the last one before the Primary Election you see the following:
As of 6/1/2026 the total was $2,426,211.40, which is obviously LARGER than what is shown on the one filed 9/28/2026 — three months later. And if you click through on the report filed on 9/10/2026, it has yet a higher number, as shown below:
As of 9/9/2026, New Leadership Now Super PAC had reported a total of $3,630,951.40 spent to support Eric Jones’ candidacy.
Step Ten: Perhaps that is why New Leadership Now Super PAC has received some “Ding Letters” from the Federal Election Commission regarding reporting irregularities. Scroll down the page with all the 48-hr. reports that you have been looking at until, at the bottom, you find a section on “Other Documents” and scroll to the right and click on “Filter this data”.
That will bring up the following webpage:
You can see three entries. One relates to the April Quarterly (1/1/2026 to 3/31/2026) report; a second one relates to the Pre-Primary 2026 report; and the third relates to the July Quarterly (4/1/2-26 to 6/30/2026) report. Click on the link for each to see what those are about. Clicking on the Pre-Election link, takes you to a two-page “ding” letter. The Pre-Election letter is quite detailed; and focuses upon faulty reporting on 48-hr. Independent Expenditure report in the final run-up to the June Primary election. See especially Paragraphs 2 and 3, below:
Next, click on the most recent “ding” letter regarding the July Quarterly report, the most recent one on file. While many shortcomings are detailed, the issues in Paragraphs 5 and 6 are relevant here to the questions about just exactly how much spending by New Leadership Now Super PAC has occurred in its efforts to help Eric Jones take out Mike Thompson.
To Be Continued
My objective is to have you equipped to do your own research to reach your own conclusions and to provide that guidance while there is time to evaluate all the information you may glean. As previously noted, a deadline will happen in the next day or so, and new reports will reveal new money sources, so hone your skills.
This concludes Chapter Two, Lesson One. In the next 48 hours I intend to publish Chapter Two, Lesson Two. It will examine another Super PAC involved in helping out Eric Jones in this race. Once the new reporting is up, I plan to highlight some of the most compelling information learned from it. Then, I will turn my attention to STATE BALLOT MEASURES and how to research all the millions of dollars being poured into the confusing/misleading advertising we are bombarded with at every turn.
STAY TUNED and HAPPY RESEARCHING!!
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