COLUMN | ON POLITICS
‘The Black Swan Election’: Trump’s Campaign Chiefs Tell Their Inside Story
LaCivita and Fabrizio explain what their inside numbers showed, where Harris messed up and why Trump wanted Vance.

By JONATHAN MARTIN
12/19/2024 10:00 AM EST

Jonathan Martin is POLITICO’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. He’s covered elections in every corner of America and co-authored a best-selling book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden. His reported column chronicles the inside conversations and major trends shaping U.S. politics.

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Earlier this month, on the sidelines of the quadrennial campaign managers’ conference at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, I spent nearly an hour speaking to two of the architects of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory.

Co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita and chief pollster Tony Fabrizio have much in common. Bald and bearded, the two Italian-Americans are veterans of many a Republican campaign. Fabrizo worked on Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential bid, and LaCivita emerged on the national scene in 2004, when he orchestrated the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on John Kerry.

In fact, when the conference discussion here turned to why Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t deploy Taylor Swift, LaCivita interjected to crack: “I was the original Swiftie.”

Fabrizio is older and less sharp-elbowed than LaCivita. He can be the cooling saucer to his younger colleague’s hot cup. At one point during the IOP conference, Fabrizio jokingly said “down, boy,” to an animated LaCivita.

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