BREAKING: Jones drops eye-popping $10 million into campaign

Wife of Jones’s former Dragoneer partner dumps in $5 million

By Roberta Millstein

With quarterly updates at FEC.gov, we have new information about just how many more millions Eric Jones and his supporters have dumped into his campaign to try to buy a seat in Congress in District 4.

Jones himself has now added $4,700,000.00 to the $5,364,133.10 he had already spent, for a total of $10,064,133.10. That is a massive amount of money for a congressional campaign, especially one that is (at least in name) a Democratic candidate vs another Democratic candidate — Mike Thompson is the incumbent.

Edited to add: An article in the Davis Enterprise states, “this makes Jones’ contributions the largest self-funding for a U.S. Congressional race in California history. It is also the sixth most self-funding spent on any race in California history.”

Here is a screenshot from FEC.gov showing his previous $5.3 million in “contributions” to his campaign:

And here is a screenshot showing the new contributions of $4.7 million from just this summer:

There is news from New Leadership Now as well, the Silicon Valley Super PAC that has been dumping money into ads attacking Thompson and supporting Jones, filling our mailboxes, social media, and TV. The wife of Jones’s former partner at the venture capitalist firm, Dragoneer Investment Group, has added $3 million to her previous donations of $2 million, for a grand total of $5 million.

That’s for someone not even in her district!

Edited to add: I’ve recently become aware that some values from New Leadership Now are showing twice on the FEC site. You’ll notice in the screenshot from the FEC above that it looks like Elisa Stad donated $1.5 mil twice on the same day. That may in fact be a single donation. If it is only one donation, that means that Elisa Stad, wife of Dragoneer founder and partner Marc Stad, where Jones was partner when he resigned and then ran for Congress, has donated “only” $3.5 million toward Jones’s attempt to buy a seat in Congress.

Voters really need to ask themselves: Why would all of this Silicon Valley money be pouring into districts to the north? You can bet it’s not for the benefit of District 4.

With regulations for AI, data centers, and crypto in play, I hope that the voters of District 4 can see through this naked attempt to buy a seat in Congress.

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Background articles on this article can be found here, including explanations of Dragoneer Investment Group, the Super PAC, previous contributions from Jones’s former partner’s wife, and others: https://davisite.org/2026/09/15/to-share-links-to-articles-about-eric-jones/

Want to do your own FEC research? Check out this awesome FEC explainer (with more articles to come):

PoliSci 101A:  Following the Money — Who’s Behind All the Slick Campaign Ads

• CHAPTER ONE:  Digging into the Details About Federal Candidates’ Supporters — Looking Beyond the Hype, Hyperbole, and Total B.S.
  • LESSON ONE:  Sorting Analyses Using Basic Standard Filters
  • LESSON TWO:  Sorting Analyses Using Custom Standard Filters
• CHAPTER TWO: Super PAC Spending for Ads, Mail, Social Media, etc.
  • LESSON ONE: New Leadership Now Super PAC (with preface & recap from Chapter One)
  • LESSON TWO: Other Outside Actors in District 4 Primary