Mike Thompson

Mike Thompson was in the middle of a guided tour of the Sonoma Community Center and all it has to offer when a budding ceramicist looked up from her project.

“Oh, you’re Thompson,” said the middle-aged woman.

She paused and then came out with it: “Can’t you do something?”

It was the kind of recognition a congressperson might expect, especially one who has now occupied his office for 14 terms, going back to 1999. And the sort of accountability demanded of him.

As Thompson, 75, seeks his 15th term, this time representing a dramatically redrawn 4th District — still with parts of Sonoma and Lake counties, and all of Napa, Yolo, Colusa, Sutter and Yuba, with slivers of Sacramento and Placer counties, too — he is relying in part on that recognition as a known, seasoned lawmaker.

It’s one advantage his primary challenger, former venture capitalist and political newcomer Eric Jones, is fighting to overcome.

That was one takeaway from shadowing Thompson through a day of community events in March. Another was the relentless grind of his day-to-day work. The itinerary began at 9 a.m. with a rendezvous at Thompson’s cramped Santa Rosa field office, and concluded around 6:30 p.m. following a town hall in Sonoma — with a half-dozen events in between, plus a quick lunch in the Sonoma Plaza.

The packed schedule reflected another reality: Thompson is working hard to counter Jones, who may present the stiffest election challenge, especially from a fellow Democrat, in all his years in the House. Jones has roughly equaled Thompson in fundraising while pouring in $365,000 of his own wealth.

California’s voter-approved redistricting has changed the geopolitical footing for Thompson. The 4th District is less heavily Democratic now, though still considered safely blue.

The 4th District race features seven other candidates. Under California’s rules, the top two finishers, regardless of party, will proceed to runoff in November. The last day to vote in the primary is June 2.

Thompson’s first morning stop March 23 was a community check-in, and it wouldn’t be his last of the day. At 9:30 a.m. he was updated on the ongoing renovation of a Catholic Charities home for at-risk youth, in the area of Ridgway High School in Santa Rosa. Later, at 3:15 p.m., the congressman would visit Adobe Drug, to get a rundown on the challenges facing Sonoma’s only remaining compounding pharmacy.

The hosts at both stops seemed grateful.

“This would genuinely not be here without your office,” Jennielynn Holmes, CEO of Catholic Charities of Northwest California, told Thompson, noting that a federal grant is expected to finance about 60% of the facility’s operating costs over a three-year period.

Another illuminating meeting occurred at 11 a.m. in a most inauspicious location — the side of busy Highway 12 in The Springs area just north of Sonoma. This was a classic piece of political theater, with Thompson handing an oversized $1.2 million check to Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chair Rebecca Hermosillo, a longtime Thompson district aide, and David Ripperda, director of projects and programming for the Sonoma County Transportation Authority.

However campy the photo opp, the 4-foot-long posterboard check represented a real windfall that will help pay for the addition of sidewalks and bike lanes along a treacherous stretch of highway between Encinas Lane and Donald Street, plus a pedestrian bridge over Agua Caliente Creek.

As if on cue, a young mom walked by, pushing a baby stroller as Thompson, Hermosillo and Ripperda finished posing for pix. She was on her way to buy baby formula, and couldn’t have looked more vulnerable as cars whizzed by on the roadway.

Thompson’s day also included a pair of table talks.

One was at Sonoma Valley Community Health Center, where leaders of the nonprofit primary health clinic filled him in on the substantial impacts they’re seeing from cuts to federal healthcare funding. The second was a large roundtable on affordability — including more than 20 stakeholders — organized by Thompson’s office and convened in the community room at Burbank Housing’s Springs Village in Boyes Hot Springs.

Thompson did more listening than talking at these events, but was quick to highlight any legislation that might address community concerns — especially legislation introduced by him, such as the American Affordability Act, designed to lower costs for a range of needs including housing, energy and childcare.

Between stops, it was Thompson behind the wheel of his SUV, with a reporter riding shotgun and a staff member in the backseat. The congressman prefers to pack his own lunch and do his own driving. That includes hauls to and from his St. Helena home and San Francisco International Airport, for the cross-country roundtrips to DC he sometimes makes twice a week.

Thompson, a state lawmaker before being elected to the House, has relied heavily in his career on an everyman affability, and it was fully on display as he chatted in the car about growing up in Napa Valley, the house his great-grandfather purchased (and in which Thompson still lives), and his love of Italian cooking.

The end of the itinerary was also the meat — a scheduled town hall in the main auditorium of the Sonoma Community Center.

The space was nearly full, including the balcony.

“Ask me anything,” Thompson said, standing at the front of a room with a microphone.

Attendees took him at his word. They asked about predatory credit rates, about network media consolidation, rebuilding a federal workforce that has been decimated by the Trump administration and even the over-the-top brightness of LED headlights.

One person pressed Thompson on whether he’s willing to denounce the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, which many scholars — and the question asker — characterize as a genocide.

“I believe war crimes have been committed,” Thompson replied. He has generally been supportive of Israel throughout his political career, including weapons sales, but has repeatedly pressed for ceasefires in Gaza and has spoken out against the widespread ruin and starvation of Palestinian communities.

A congressional town hall also is apt to produce odd moments. Consecutive questions came from divorced parents — one father, one mother, unrelated to one another — complaining about their experiences in family court.

Mostly, though, the Q&A was an opportunity for Thompson to hammer away at his topic of choice these days: President Donald Trump, and the remaking of America into a nation that is increasingly isolated and dismissive of international norms. A decorated Vietnam War combat veteran, Thompson went hard on the constant chaos of the current administration, and especially the war in Iran.

Describing an intelligence briefing he had recently received from military officials in DC, he said, “I came out with more questions than I had going in, and an hour of my life I’ll never get back.”

He kept up the critical drumbeat as he laid into the SAVE Act, which would require voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship at the time of registration, and a photo ID when casting a ballot: “It’s designed to save one thing, and that’s (Trump’s) butt.”

And on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “I voted against the bill that created ICE, because there wasn’t proper oversight or guardrails.”

Thompson has forged his career in politics as a moderate Democrat, a member of the party’s so-called Blue Dog Coalition, with a propensity for working across the aisle. But that spirit of conciliation has largely fallen away over the past 16 months, as Trump 2.0 and his cabinet have attempted to overhaul everything from immigration to climate policy to the courts.

Many on the left have come to see the Democratic Party as feckless and slow in rising to curb what they see as the Trump assault. Jones, 35, is using that discontent to his advantage on the campaign trail, accusing Thompson of being part of a complicit old guard that isn’t up to the task.

The congressman, in turn, has sought to burnish his image as a fighter. In the blue parts of his district, the message is resonating. When a Sonoma town hall guest took the mic to advocate for the SAVE Act, Thompson forcefully shut him down — to applause from the crowd.

Throughout the long day, Thompson offered only one tidbit that could be seen as a direct jab at Jones. It came during a discussion of energy rates during the affordability roundtable.

“We have to make sure rate payers aren’t paying the freight for tech bros and AI data centers,” he said, in what could be read as a reference to Jones’ campaign donors.

But Thompson didn’t mention Eric Jones by name in that moment, nor at any point throughout the day. That’s another advantage enjoyed by an incumbent.

But with only a couple weeks left before the June 2 primary, it was also clear Jones’ unique challenge has Thompson’s full attention.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or [email protected]. On X (Twitter) @Skinny_Post.