In one 2000 campaign in Virginia, Chris LaCivita marched around the office shouting orders and stabbing his own Marine-issued NCO sword into the wall.
Today, he’s mellowed, he told Mother Jones, and he doesn’t brandish the weapon anymore. “They have these things called human resources now.”
Chris LaCivita is a GOP operative known for his bravado, ruthless campaign tactics and his uncanny ability to turn losing races into victories.
Now he is also known for the eye-popping sums of money he is making as co-manager of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, after the Daily Beast revealed Tuesday how he has banked $22 million already and is on track to cash in even more before the election.
LaCivita responded to the revelation in the bare-knuckle style that makes him one of the most fearsome figures in American politics, claiming that the Beast story was “fabricated nonsense” and part of a “kamikaze operation” to “defame me.” He did not, however, directly deny the huge sums of money revealed by the Beast.
LaCivita, 57, first made national headlines in 2004 as the mastermind behind the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, which attacked Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s military service.
The ads were a turning point in modern political warfare, and LaCivita earned a reputation as a cutthroat strategist who plays to win—no matter how controversial the methods.
“Chris is one of the most effective campaign operatives I have ever known,” his friend and former Democratic operative Mo Elleithee told Mother Jones. “He is a brass knuckle brawler who understands what moves voters better than almost any operative I have ever known on either side of the aisle. And he pulls no punches.”
After graduating from college in Virginia and enlisting in the Marines in 1991, LaCivita’s career was shaped during the Gulf War, where he was injured in combat with shrapnel to the chin. He received a Purple Heart, returned from Iraq and moved into politics.
He earned $500 running a local supervisor’s campaign near Richmond, Virginia and then worked on George Allen’s 1991 special Congressional campaign, quickly gaining a reputation for his sharp, aggressive style. Allen won his race, then ran for governor and won again, and LaCivita became executive director of the Virginia GOP.
By the early 2000s, LaCivita had cemented himself as a mid-tier GOP operative, consulting for key Senate and House races across the country. In fact his involvement in the 2004 presidential campaign was until now his only national campaign role.
Trump’s 2024 campaign represents LaCivita’s biggest challenge yet. As co-campaign manager alongside Susie Wiles, LaCivita told New York Magazine: “It’s the president’s name on the ballot, not mine. My job in this campaign is no different than it’s been in any other. The president sets the tone, the president makes clear what the goals are; my job is to put together with Susie the rest of the team and to make sure that the plan is actually executed. That’s it.”
“LaCivita is just a supremely competent nuts-and-bolts guy,” Donald Trump Jr. told New York Magazine. He’s also not afraid to throw some bombs on Twitter when necessary, which is something I can obviously relate to and very much appreciate.”
But LaCivita’s track record is more than just mudslinging and fundraising. He’s helped win some of the toughest races in modern GOP history. In 2014, he played a key role in securing longtime GOP Senator Pat Roberts’ re-election in Kansas, defying polls that had Roberts trailing his opponent Greg Orman, an independent. LaCivita torched Orman with negative attacks connecting him to Barack Obama.
In 2022, LaCivita rescued Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson who was running against Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes who was seeking to become the state’s first black senator. LaCivita’s attacks were brutal and racially charged accusing Barnes of being “different” and “dangerous.”
His ability to turn around campaigns at the last minute is one of the reasons Trump has put so much faith in LaCivita
“I don’t know many people who don’t want to make America great again,” LaCivita told New York Magazine in a rare interview. “What I’ve done for the last 32 years in one form or fashion have been campaigns aimed at beating Democrats.”
He lives in a relatively modest home in Powhatan, outside Richmond with his wife of 31 years, Catherine. At least one of their adult children, Victoria, is now a full-time Republican operative.
That relative modesty might explain the sums of money he is making from working for Trump. Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia professor who has known LaCivita for decades told the Daily Beast, “He felt he was dramatically underpaid in some prior campaigns.” With Trump he may have found what he was looking for, what Sabato called, “a sinecure.”
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