CA-4 Congressional Representation Needs New Leadership
At this critical time, as we confront the destruction of our democratic institutions and equal representation under the law, we have a choice to make while we can still vote. In this year’s District CA-4 Congressional primary election on June 2nd (early voting starts on Monday, May 4th), we can vote for one of the two leading Democratic candidates: Mike Thompson or Eric Jones.
Mike Thompson, the 28-year incumbent, has shown that no amount of phone calls and letters will change his commitment to a system that “trusts the process.” Thompson’s politics will not allow him to raise taxes on gross excess (oil, drug, gambling, tech, and the weapons industries). He has and will continue to rationalize excessive profits and justify incarceration at home and $6 trillion (since 2001) in support for endless war.
Even though Thompson shares many of the same values I and most Yolo County residents hold, he has not fought for them hard enough. He had his chance; he did the best he could, and we appreciate his service, but he is not the voice or leader we need now.
As Thompson explained at the League of Women Voters meeting in June of 2025 “they do a ranking of bipartisanship, and I always rank real high….If we are going to do big things, we need to be bipartisan; otherwise, every time we have a majority change it all goes away.” What is not going away, Mr. Thompson?
Eric Jones is Thompson’s challenger. There is no need to worry that a Democratic primary challenge will eliminate all Democrats from our safely blue district race. One of the Democratic candidates, Jones or Thompson (or both), will finish 1st or 2nd after the June primary. The Democratic candidate will have the votes to win the CA-4 district in November.
Jones is a 35-year-old self-made entrepreneur. He grew up in Maine, where his family faced financial hardship. His mother worked for low wages as a nurse, married to a disabled war veteran. Eric’s older half-brother, Joe, served in the Navy. Eric is no stranger to struggle and understands the essential role of government safety nets. His mother made good use of aid to further her nursing career and supplement household income. A top student, Eric attended Yale on scholarship and moved to California in his 20s, where he has settled in Napa to raise his family.
Trump makes Watergate look normal. Trump and Project 2025 are engineered by a very well-financed and long-planned group of supremacist religious technocrats who need to have the money rug pulled from under them. Get along politics has been emptying the pockets of 90% of us for 50 years; Thompson has been in office for most of them.
While Thompson might learn the language of promising an end to ICE, an end to corporate profiteering, housing speculation, and an end to using our tax dollars to arm the world’s despots, do not be disappointed if he uses his power the same way he has for the last 28 years. It is not that Mike Thompson has voted contrary to the morals of a liberal democracy. He has consistently voted for women’s reproductive rights, gun control, and some workers’ and veterans’ benefits. The question is, why, during his leadership, are all those values now staring down the barrel of an ICE agent’s gun?
How many times are we, Indivisible Yolo, Sister District Project Yolo, Mothers Out Front, Democratic Socialist of America, and the hardworking volunteers for a just democratic America going to hand over the moral momentum and a series of electoral upsets, like those leading up to the November 4th 2025 (NY Mayor Mamdani, Virginia Governor, and New Jersey Governor) victories, only to see, just 6 days later, the current Senate Minority Leader, Schumer, convince 7 “Democratic” senators (including the Nevada Senators Jackie Rosen and Cortez Masto – also owing their victories to huge national grassroots support) to vote to open government and fund ICE to the tune of $9.9 billion dollars? We did not get health care funding. We did get a DHS-approved path to unlimited H-2B foreign worker visas, used to undercut US tech workers.
It took the shooting of Renee Good to get Thompson to rally us around impeaching Kristi Noem (there had been 37 ICE killings before Good’s). The outrage is late, coming now that Thompson has a challenger, and challenger Eric Jones is taking the job of winning our vote very seriously.
Eric Jones is committed to building a better future and has assembled a team to win the opportunity to do so as our representative in the House. Not to be unappreciative of our local elected officials, but in our time, no one among CA-4’s established Democratic elected officials rose to challenge Thompson. This is something our majority party should consider.
I support sending Eric Jones to Congress because he stands against the system of “get-along politics.” He has not been groomed by the captured portion of the California Democratic Party. His platform includes affordability and access to health care, housing, and childcare, and he has the independence to represent all of District CA 4 in Congress.