“It’s simply heartwarming that the folks in your neighborhood acknowledge the work that I’ve been doing and have come out to help my reelection,” Thompson informed KQED on Tuesday evening. “My major opposition is someone who’s from San Francisco, a rich enterprise capitalist, and that was simply not interesting to the voters,” he mentioned, referring to Jones.
Jones ran his problem as a part of a wave of youthful, progressive candidates taking over Democrats in protected blue districts throughout the state because the celebration grappled with easy methods to win again the working-class voters it misplaced in 2024.
No less than within the 4th District, which was redrawn beneath Proposition 50 to usher in extra conservative, rural areas, Thompson’s win means that established voices nonetheless maintain sway over the power behind Democrats’ requires generational change.
Thompson, 75, a average Democrat and Vietnam Warfare veteran, is looking for his fifteenth time period in Congress. He has constructed his marketing campaign round his document, framing himself as a battle-tested politician who will struggle to guard democracy.
“I feel each era has one thing to supply, and there are youthful folks coming into Congress, however you may’t have a complete Congress of name new folks,” Thompson mentioned. “My expertise is essential.”
A lifelong gun proprietor and hunter, certainly one of Thompson’s signature points is gun reform.
Following the Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty capturing in 2012, then-Home Minority Chief Nancy Pelosi appointed him chair of the Home Gun Violence Prevention Activity Drive.
He has additionally made the wine trade a precedence as a winery proprietor himself and co-chair of the Congressional Wine Caucus, incomes the title “Congress’s Man of the Vines.”
He secured tax breaks for the trade and launched payments to compensate wine producers and crop growers for losses they confronted from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Jones, 35, is a former enterprise capitalist who has by no means held public workplace. He describes himself as a progressive Democrat and has the endorsement of Our Revolution, a progressive group based by Sen. Bernie Sanders. Alongside Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, Jones additionally co-founded the American Dream Institute to have interaction younger working voters.
As a candidate, he seeks to attach with these voters by pointing to his low-income upbringing in Maine because the son of a disabled veteran. At occasions, his household relied on Medicaid, meals stamps and incapacity checks.
He champions establishing common childcare and increasing Medicare to cowl in-home nursing, dental, imaginative and prescient and listening to care.
Elsewhere within the state, progressive challenges embrace districts in Sacramento, the place Metropolis Councilmember Mai Vang took on 10-term Rep. Doris Matsui, and in Los Angeles, the place former Obama and Biden White Home local weather aide Jake Levine sought to unseat 16-term Rep. Brad Sherman.
Early outcomes present each incumbents holding on in these districts as effectively. Sherman will advance to a runoff in opposition to Republican Larry Thompson, with Levine lacking the lower, in keeping with the Related Press, which referred to as the race. Matsui leads Vang with counting nonetheless underway.
There are additionally six Republican candidates within the District 4 race, however they’ve obtained little or no media protection.
Riehle, a small-business proprietor who runs a advertising and junk mail service in Citrus Heights, leads all Republicans in fundraising however nonetheless lags behind Thompson and Jones by thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
Riehle makes some extent of not being a profession politician, vowing to roll again taxes, crack down on crime and oppose sanctuary insurance policies. As a enterprise proprietor, he sees himself aligned with working-class voters.
After final 12 months’s redistricting, practically half of District 4 is new territory. The redrawn district brings in additional conservative areas from the Sacramento Valley, together with all of Colusa, Yuba and Sutter counties and elements of Placer and Sacramento counties, whereas dropping a lot of its Sonoma and Lake County territory.
“I’ll work my tail off for them and signify them as they’ve by no means been represented earlier than,” Thompson mentioned.
Nonetheless, the Prepare dinner Political Report charges the district as solidly blue, giving Republicans little likelihood of flipping this seat.
Jones has mounted essentially the most critical problem in opposition to Thompson in years, elevating $3 million and pouring in an extra $5.2 million of his personal cash earlier than the first. Thompson raised $3.4 million.
Jones has pledged to not settle for any company PAC cash, calling for closing company tax loopholes and banning inventory buying and selling for members of Congress.
But his donor base tells its personal story. A lot of his funding comes from enterprise capital, tech and financing, together with the co-founder of Duolingo. An excellent PAC funded principally by the founding father of Jones’ former enterprise capital agency has spent greater than $2.3 million on advertisements to assist his candidacy.
Thompson, in the meantime, has been a gentle presence within the district, scandal-free with deep ties to wine nation. The outcomes to this point counsel that, no less than right here, voters’ urge for food for change is proscribed.
