By F.E.C. Nerd
Chapter Two: Super PAC Spending for Ads, Mail, Social Media, etc.
LESSON TWO: OTHER OUTSIDE ACTORS IN DISTRICT 4 PRIMARY
Step One: Start back at the basic FEC.gov website, scroll down as before and click on “House of Representatives candidates” and then when that page opens up, scroll to the left-hand column and enter in the “Candidate Name” box, “Jones, Eric” and click on the drop-down entry for “Jones, Eric” without any middle name. Scroll to the right into the main frame and click again on the link for “Jones, Eric.” You should now see this page:
Step Two: Scroll down in the left-hand column and click on the dark blue link “Compare to opposing candidates” and you will bring up the following screen that shows all the candidates who ran in the June Primary for California Congressional District 4 and each candidate’s fundraising totals as of June 30, 2026.
As you can see, there were three Democrats and four Republicans that raised at least $5,000. We will ignore the other three candidates.
Step Three: We have already explored Eric Jones’ and Mike Thompson’s campaigns, so let’s start with “Riehle, Raymond” the front-runner among the Republican candidates. Click on his name and examine his reporting, which brings up this webpage:
Note immediately that a large majority of his funding was in small “unitemized” donations of less than $200 per contributor.
Step Four: Click on the “Itemized Individual Contributions” link to see the sources of the $30,564.96.
A lot of Riehle’s contributions came from WINRED, which appears to be a Republican-aligned “Hybrid PAC” that is their version of Act Blue. Clicking on a WINRED contribution reveals:
Step Five: Click the back arrow on your browser to toggle back to the first Ray Riehle page, then scroll to the left-hand column and click on “Spending by Others to Support or Oppose.” You can see whom else got involved in Ray Riehle’s campaign against Eric Jones and Mike Thompson.
California Leadership Fund spend $62,117.14 to OPPOSE Ray Riehle’s attempt to get on the November “top two” runoff ballot for California District 4.
Step Six: Click on California Leadership Fund to learn about it. It is another Super PAC.
If you scroll down through the webpage (beyond the end of the screenshot above) you see that while it took in $115,000 it spent less than that and has “Cash on Hand” on 6/30/2026.
Step Seven: Let’s see if California Leadership Fund is involved again — in the General Election. Follow along below as we learn they have already spent $33,341 on “Print Ads” to oppose “Mike Mr. Thompson.” (You can tell it’s Ohio treasurer isn’t familiar with our Congressman, Mike Thompson.) To reach the screen below, toggle back to the basic California Leadership Fund Super PAC’s campaign reports. In the left-hand column scroll down to “Filings” and click on that. Then click on “24- and 48-hr. reports” and you will see this screen. The top one is the only post-Primary report, dated 10/08/2026, just one week ago! That doesn’t clear out their cash, so look for more in the coming days.
Now click on the link for the October 8 report and then click through via the link to Schedule E, to show the details (as we previously have done in Chapter Two, Lesson One).
Step Eight: Now scroll all the way back up to the top of this webpage and click on the “Browse Receipts” button, like you have done previously, to see where the money came from for California Leadership Fund Super PAC. Not many contributors to research here:
Note first that only $75,000 of the money came in prior to the Primary Election and was used to oppose Ray Riehle’s candidacy. In the second half of September, another $40,000 has poured into this Super PAC. Very curiously, the three contributions totaling $40,000 all are designated as for the “Primary” election despite being made more than 3 months after the Primary was over.
One of the recent contributors is “Fradin, Russell.” You may recall from earlier lessons that he is one of the founders of Larradin and donated to both Eric Jones’ campaign and to New Leadership Now Super PAC.
Step Nine: But almost all ($100,000) of the contributions came from “Dixit, Rishi.”Click on “Dixit, Rishi” to learn about Rishi Dixit.
Rishi Dixit is an “Analyst” for Valiant Capital. Also of interest is the fact that “California Leadership Fund” is apparently based in “OHIO.” We can delve into these and see what’s there.
According to Valiant Capital’s website, Rishi Dixit is an “Investment Partner” with the company.
California Leadership Fund Super PAC is based in Dublin, Ohio, according to its Statement of Organization, filed on 4/22/2026, just weeks before the June Primary Election.
Step Ten: Research whether Rishi Dixit has contributed to either Eric Jones or New Leadership Now Super PAC, as has Russell Fradin. Using your research skills go first to Eric Jones’ campaign reports and when it comes up, click on “Browse Receipts.” When that comes up, scroll to the left-hand column and under “Source Details – Name or ID” insert “Dixit” and click on the button. You will see this page:
Clicking on the + on the right shows Rishi Dixit is listed as an “Analyst” with Valiant Capital in Santa Monica, CA. He donated the double maximum ($7,000) to Eric Jones on 9/24/25, just two weeks after Eric Jones filed his Statement of Candidacy. A search of contributors (as of 6/30/26) for New Leadership Now Super PAC did not find any contributions by Rishi Dixit.
Step Eleven: Go back to the list of all the “opposing” candidates for District 4 in the Primary. Explore the next one down the list below Ray Riehle — Laurie John Mackenzie. Click through to see her contributions and then click on “Browse Receipts” and the following appears:
The Dixit folks are very interested in helping out Laurie John Mackenzie to take votes away from Ray Riehle, so they provided virtually ALL of her campaign funding for the Primary. Both Rishi Dixit and Georgia Dixit are located in Santa Monica, CA. Purnima Dixit and Rahul Dixit are both listed as “Retired” and from Florida. Georgia’s information is shown below:
Step Twelve: Move on from Laurie John Mackenzie to the next Republican down the list, “Brown, Sharon.” Click on the link for her campaign, then once it opens up, click on “Browse Receipts.”
Rishi Dixit and Georgia Dixit donated ALL the money that Sharon Brown got for the Primary.
Step Thirteen: Toggle back and click on the next Republican in the Primary, “Ghusar, Mandy.”
Click on “Browse Receipts.” She got the same total as Sharon Brown, any guesses as to where Mandy Ghusar’s money came from? Click to see:
Note again, these batches of contributions were all made within one week of each batch to separate candidates. Interesting fact patterns. You may draw your own conclusions. Keep in mind the following regarding the June Primary election results — from the California Secretary of State’s results for California Congressional District 4.
CONCLUSION: This concludes Chapter Two, Lesson One and Lesson Two. Next week, I plan to put out Chapter Three explaining how to “Follow the Money” for State ballot measures. In the meantime, be on the alert starting tomorrow (Friday, October 16) for newly filed reports.
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