Raymond Riehle
Raymond Riehle (Republican Party) is running for election to the U.S. House to represent California's 4th Congressional District. He declared candidacy for the primary scheduled on June 2, 2026.[source]
Biography
Raymond Riehle was born in Inglewood, California. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1984. His career experience includes working as the owner of A-Applied Mailing Service, Inc., a distributor for NuEyes, an elected board member, and for Citrus Heights Water District. Riehle has been affiliated with Citrus Heights Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club of Citrus Heights, Toastmaster, and Notre Dame Club of Sacramento.[1]
2026 battleground election
Ballotpedia identified the June 2 top-two primary for California's 4th Congressional District as a battleground election. The summary below is from our coverage of this election, found here.
Three Democrats, four Republicans, and one independent candidate are running in the top-two primary for California's 4th Congressional District on June 2, 2026. As of March 2026, incumbent Mike Thompson (D) and Eric Jones (D) led in fundraising and local media attention.[2][3]
Local political observers describe the primary in terms of the ideological and generational contrast between Thompson and Jones. The San Francisco Chronicle's Joe Garofali described the primary as "another example of a younger, well-funded Bay Area Democrat taking on an entrenched candidate as the Democratic Party grapples with how to win back voters," referring to the party's losses at the national level in the 2024 elections.[3] Politico's Jeremy B. White said Jones is "hoping to exploit a rapidly shifting media landscape that makes it easier for lesser-known candidates to break through, as Zohran Mamdani did in New York’s mayoral primary with viral campaign videos."[4] The Press Democrat's Phil Barber said, "Democrats hold an overwhelming edge in voter registration in the district, so the June primary is set to decide the likely frontrunner in the November election."[5]
Thompson was first elected to the House in 1998. He earlier served eight years in the California Senate. Thompson is a vineyard owner. Thompson says he is running because "[w]ith the outcome of the last election and what’s happened since then with this (Donald Trump) administration and the Republican majority, it’s absolutely imperative that I continue the work I’ve started," referring to his position on the House Ways and Means Committee.[2] The Democratic Party of California endorsed Thompson.[6]
Jones is a former executive at an investment firm and the founder of the American Dream Institute, a group describing itself as "a first-of-its-kind digital engagement engine dedicated to helping the Democratic Party rebuild trust with young working Americans."[7] Jones says he is running "to restore the American Dream for every family — not just the wealthy few."[8] Our Revolution, an organization that advocates for the policies of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), endorsed Jones.[9]
Also running in the primary are Trevor Merrell (D), Sharon Brown (R), Heath Fulkerson (R), Mandy Ghusar (R), John MacKenzie (R), and John Wesley Tyler (I).
In a top-two primary, all candidates running for a given office appear on the same ballot. The top two finishers—regardless of partisan affiliation—advance to the general election. One Democrat and one Republican have advanced from every top-two primary in the 4th District since 2016.
The primary is taking place in the context of redistricting in California that changed the 4th District's boundaries from those used in 2024. Inside Elections' Nathaniel Rakich said the 2026 version of the 4th District favors Democrats overall but does so by a narrower margin than the district lines in use in 2024.[10] As of March 2026, major election forecasters rated the general election Solid/Safe Democratic.
Elections
2026
See also: California's 4th Congressional District election, 2026
California's 4th Congressional District election, 2026 (June 2 top-two primary)
General election
The primary will occur on June 2, 2026. The general election will occur on November 3, 2026. General election candidates will be added here following the primary.
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for U.S. House California District 4
The following candidates are running in the primary for U.S. House California District 4 on June 2, 2026.
Candidate | ||
 | Mike Thompson (D) | |
| Sharon Brown (R) | ||
 | Heath Fulkerson (R) | |
| Mandy Ghusar (R) | ||
 | Eric Jones (D) | |
| Jimih Jones (R) | ||
| L. John MacKenzie (R) | ||
Trevor Merrell (D)  | ||
 | Raymond Riehle (R) | |
 | Thomas Roach (No party preference) | |
 | John Wesley Tyler (No party preference) | |
| Chuck Uribe (R) | ||
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Polls
- See also: Ballotpedia's approach to covering polls
We provide results for polls that are included in polling aggregation from RealClearPolitics, when available. We will regularly check for polling aggregation for this race and add polls here once available. To notify us of polls available for this race, please email us.
Candidate spending
| Name | Party | Receipts* | Disbursements** | Cash on hand | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Thompson | Democratic Party | $2,037,569 | $1,313,154 | $1,933,903 | As of December 31, 2025 |
| Eric Jones | Democratic Party | $2,591,551 | $789,151 | $1,802,400 | As of December 31, 2025 |
| Trevor Merrell | Democratic Party | $0 | $0 | $0 | Data not available*** |
| Sharon Brown | Republican Party | $7,000 | $2,780 | $4,220 | As of December 31, 2025 |
| Heath Fulkerson | Republican Party | $0 | $0 | $0 | Data not available*** |
| Mandy Ghusar | Republican Party | $7,000 | $3,789 | $3,211 | As of December 31, 2025 |
| Jimih Jones | Republican Party | $0 | $0 | $0 | Data not available*** |
| L. John MacKenzie | Republican Party | $7,000 | $2,780 | $4,220 | As of December 31, 2025 |
| Raymond Riehle | Republican Party | $90,180 | $75,019 | $15,701 | As of December 31, 2025 |
| Chuck Uribe | Republican Party | $0 | $0 | $0 | Data not available*** |
| Thomas Roach | No party preference | $0 | $0 | $0 | Data not available*** |
| John Wesley Tyler | No party preference | $1,385 | $1,337 | $48 | As of December 31, 2025 |
|
Source: Federal Elections Commission, "Campaign finance data," 2026. This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* According to the FEC, "Receipts are anything of value (money, goods, services or property) received by a political committee." |
|||||
Satellite spending
- See also: Satellite spending
Satellite spending describes political spending not controlled by candidates or their campaigns; that is, any political expenditures made by groups or individuals that are not directly affiliated with a candidate. This includes spending by political party committees, super PACs, trade associations, and 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.[11][12][13]
If available, this section includes links to online resources tracking satellite spending in this election. To notify us of a resource to add, email us.
| By candidate | By election |
|---|---|
Endorsements
Ballotpedia is gathering information about candidate endorsements. To send us an endorsement, click here.
2024
See also: California's 6th Congressional District election, 2024
California's 6th Congressional District election, 2024 (March 5 top-two primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House California District 6
Incumbent Ami Bera defeated Christine Bish in the general election for U.S. House California District 6 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Ami Bera (D) | 57.6 | 165,408 |
 | Christine Bish (R) | 42.4 | 121,664 | |
| Total votes: 287,072 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for U.S. House California District 6
The following candidates ran in the primary for U.S. House California District 6 on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Ami Bera (D) | 51.8 | 76,605 |
| ✔ | | Christine Bish (R) | 20.1 | 29,628 |
| Raymond Riehle (R) | 10.7 | 15,779 | |
 | Craig DeLuz (R) | 9.7 | 14,361 | |
 | Adam Barajas (D) | 5.9 | 8,711 | |
 | Chris Richardson (G) | 1.8 | 2,661 | |
| Total votes: 147,745 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Omba Kipuke (D)
- Bret Daniels (R)
- Marshall Martin (R)
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Riehle in this election.
2022
See also: California State Assembly elections, 2022
General election
General election for California State Assembly District 7
Josh Hoover defeated incumbent Ken Cooley in the general election for California State Assembly District 7 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Josh Hoover (R) | 50.4 | 83,768 |
 | Ken Cooley (D) | 49.6 | 82,385 | |
| Total votes: 166,153 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for California State Assembly District 7
Incumbent Ken Cooley and Josh Hoover defeated Raymond Riehle, Jeffrey Perrine, and Quintin Levesque in the primary for California State Assembly District 7 on June 7, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Ken Cooley (D) | 50.9 | 56,949 |
| ✔ | | Josh Hoover (R) | 34.0 | 38,001 |
| Raymond Riehle (R) | 8.4 | 9,429 | |
 | Jeffrey Perrine (R) | 5.6 | 6,214 | |
| Quintin Levesque (R) | 1.1 | 1,249 | ||
| Total votes: 111,842 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign finance
Campaign themes
2026
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Raymond Riehle has not yet completed Ballotpedia's 2026 Candidate Connection survey. Send a message to Raymond Riehle asking him to fill out the survey. If you are Raymond Riehle, click here to fill out Ballotpedia's 2026 Candidate Connection survey.
Who fills out Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey?
Any candidate running for elected office, at any level, can complete Ballotpedia's Candidate Survey. Completing the survey will update the candidate's Ballotpedia profile, letting voters know who they are and what they stand for. More than 26,000 candidates have taken Ballotpedia's candidate survey since we launched it in 2015. Learn more about the survey here.
You can ask Raymond Riehle to fill out this survey by using the button below or emailing ray@rayriehle.com.
2024
Raymond Riehle did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign website
Riehle’s campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
Ask yourself three questions:
Committees of the U.S. Congress / Congress.gov / Library of Congress websites show the current list of Standing Committees, Sub-Committees, Select Committees, Joint Committees, Special Committees, and Archived Committees. There are many laws and policies that pass through each of these committees. Ray has identified 7 areas he thinks are important to most Californians. They are all important, but he has laid them out in the order he finds most compelling. Please let Ray know what YOU think is most important, and WHY.
ECONOMY
PUBLIC SAFETY
EDUCATION
HEALTHCARE
INFRASTRUCTURE
NATIONAL SECURITY
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
|
” |
| —Raymond Riehle’s campaign website (2024)[15] | ||
2022
Raymond Riehle completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Riehle's responses.
| Collapse all
Ray attended public schools and after graduating from San Juan High School attended the University of Notre Dame and graduated with a BA in History.
Post college and before he became business owner, he worked for Nimbus Medical, Inc. Nimbus was a medical device company developing a type of artificial heart called the "Hemopump".
Ray has raised 4 children who went to local public schools. He is active in the Rotary Club, Local Chamber of Commerce, and Toastmasters and he served on the local school district Bond Oversight Committee.
For 7 years he has served as an elected board member of the Citrus Heights Water District. As a Board Member, Ray has worked with the other board members and with staff on the development of annual budgets and several significant projects. The most important project has been a long-term water main replacement program. The pipes that deliver water to customers have a limited life expectancy. By looking ahead 50 to 70 years, the CHWD will ensure that safe and affordable water will be available for future generations.
Ray’s experiences as a business owner, community leader, and Water Board Member have prepared him to be a thoughtful and effective member of the state legislature.- Public Safety is the foundation of a civil society. We must ensure that Law Enforcement has the resources to protect the public.
- We all have a real interest in the success of every student. Every child deserves an effective education that prepares them for college or a vocational training.
- The key to a great California is economic growth and job creation. One of the most important jobs of the legislature is to focus on issues that impact economic recovery and job creation. Taxes, fees, and assessments must be low, fair, stable, predictable. Restore control of economic development tools to local government.
There have been no new dams built in the last 50 years. In 2014, Proposition 1 was passed by a 2-1 margin authorizing the construction of new water storage and a more effective conveyance infrastructure. It included $2.7 Billion for water storage, dams, and reservoir projects. Since it was passed, we have gone though one severe drought and are now in a second with not one drop of new water storage built. The will of the people has been thwarted by a bureaucracy that blatantly follows their own agenda while ignoring state laws.
Every decision the state makes includes unfunded mandates on water districts which always leads to rate increases. AB 1668 and SB 660 were passed in May of 2018. These laws force the people to reduce water consumption to 50 gals per day by 2030. Water agencies will be responsible for ensuring that the overall water consumption meets he requirements. Water agencies will have to create water budgets for their customers. The costs of creating the water budgets will be borne by the customers. The exact process for creating a water budget is undefined. “Just Do It” is a great slogan for Nike. It doesn’t work quite as well when it is the direction coming from the state setting policies and procedures that impact 40,000,000 people.
My first paying job was delivering newspapers.
Through high school and college, I worked at a veterinary clinic as an assistant in the rooms and also in surgery. In college I worked in an encephalitis research lab mostly taking care of the laboratory animals. I also worked a couple of summers in a lumber yard.
After college, I took a job at Nimbus Medical, Inc., a medical device company that was developing an artificial heart. I was responsible for managing the laboratory space to allow the engineers to run a variety of experiments and tests on the devices. My experience as a veterinary technician was important because we were doing pre-clinical animal tests of the device. Being comfortable in a surgical setting was critical for the job.
My experience in the animal studies allowed me to be the prime author of the directions for use. Before the FDA gave approval for human trials, thousands of pages of data, protocols, procedures, informed consent, the directions for use, and manufacturing drawings and product details were submitted and reviewed.
After the device was approve for use in people, I became one of the trainers. I worked with physicians, nurses, and technicians teaching them how to set up and run the device. My part of the training class was about 4 hours of class work and hands on set-up and operations of the device. We also trained hospital staff on how to fill out and collect the necessary data to support the clinical trial.
As the trial moved forward, I had additional responsivities of reviewing and auditing patient data to ensure that the reports to the FDA were complete and accurate.
I worked at Nimbus for 6 years. When the device was sold, I worked 2 years as a part-time consultant for J&J and later Medtronic.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2026 Elections
External links
|
Candidate U.S. House California District 4 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on June 4, 2022
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Press Democrat, "Why rival Democrat Eric Jones thinks he can unseat Mike Thompson, North Bay's senior congressman," September 9, 2025
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The San Francisco Chronicle, "Another longtime Bay Area House member is getting an intraparty challenge," September 9, 2025
- ↑ Politico, "Dems unleash House primary challenges in war on gerontocracy," September 16, 2025
- ↑ The Press Democrat, "U.S. Capitol police: Member of Eric Jones’ campaign investigated for surveilling Mike Thompson’s Napa County home," December 4, 2025
- ↑ Democratic Party of California, "2026 Primary Election Endorsements," February 22, 2026
- ↑ Yahoo Finance, "American Dream Institute Launches to Help Progressives Win Back Young Americans," August 22, 2025
- ↑ Eric Jones campaign website, "Home page," accessed March 9, 2026
- ↑ Facebook, "Our Revolution on February 23, 2026," accessed March 9, 2026
- ↑ Inside Elections, "A Detailed Analysis of California’s (Maybe) New Congressional Map," August 21, 2025
- ↑ OpenSecrets.org, "Outside Spending," accessed December 12, 2021
- ↑ OpenSecrets.org, "Total Outside Spending by Election Cycle, All Groups," accessed December 12, 2021
- ↑ National Review.com, "Why the Media Hate Super PACs," December 12, 2021
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Ray Riehle US Congress, “Issues,” accessed January 28, 2024
