Published July 13, 2026 · Updated with each build
Red Box Watch

A public ledger of red‑boxing — campaign‑site signals to super PACs

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Finding House · California Democrat

Jones, Eric FINDING

Seat
H-CA-04
Party
DEM
Universe reason
contested_primary
FEC receipts
$8,131,514 FEC
Campaign site
https://www.ericjones.us/ (unverified)
Pages scanned
43 · last 2026-07-09

Posted public messaging guidance consistent with red-boxing

Detected on https://www.ericjones.us/get-the-facts  · classifier confidence 0.75 · model fireworks/deepseek-v4-flash

The page contains explicit directives about what voters need to see, hear, and read, along with timing cues ('in coming weeks'), which are characteristic of red-box guidance intended for an outside group that will execute paid media. The language is not directly persuading voters but instructing on media placement and messaging, despite being on the campaign's own site.

Quoted evidence — verbatim spans from the page

  • VOTERS NEED TO SEE THE CONTRAST AND THEY NEED TO KNOW WHY MIKE ISN’T THE RIGHT CHOICE
    Directive language instructing what voters should see, typical of media-buy guidance.
  • In coming weeks, the voters need to WATCH, HEAR AND READ THE CONTRAST between Eric Jones and Mike Thompson
    Specifies channels (watch, hear, read) and timing (in coming weeks), indicating media placement instructions.
  • Voters Need to Strongly Know Why Mike Thompson is Part of the Problem.
    Prescribed message theme framed as a directive for what voters must know.
Archived screenshot of https://www.ericjones.us/get-the-facts
Archived at detectionFull-page screenshot of https://www.ericjones.us/get-the-facts · Raw HTML preserved

Independent-expenditure corroboration

FEC Schedule E · 38 filings

Sequence. Messaging guidance was present on the candidate's site when detected (by us) on 2026-07-09; $3,572,635 in supporting independent expenditures is on file for this candidate, and $1,200,000 opposing.

Committee AmountFilingsDate range
S NEW LEADERSHIP NOW $3,572,635 36 2026-04-21 – 2026-05-15
O BDA PAC $1,200,000 2 2026-04-02 – 2026-04-02

S Supporting O Opposing

Schedule E is corroboration, not the trigger — a filed expenditure is late evidence, and our detection timestamp reflects when we crawled, which can lag the actual posting. Supporting IE dated on or after our detection day: $0. Dates are FEC expenditure dates.