Confident verging on cocky, the bald and charcoal bearded Trump co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, said Tuesday in Milwaukee that Donald Trump has “20 paths to victory” in November. The Biden campaign, he said, has one.
The Daily Beast caught up with LaCivita at an offsite event from the main headquarters of the Republican National Convention, where he spoke to students at an event hosted by Georgetown University.
In between bites of eggs Benedict with ham and shaved carrots, the mostly college-aged brunch crowd listened as the Marine combat veteran with his college football coach style talked strategy and how the assassination attempt on the former president has changed the trajectory of the race.
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“We’re not changing the strategy,” LaCivita insisted, adding, “The boss says all the time: ‘we don’t play prevent D,” LaCivita said, referring to the “prevent defense” play in American football when a team is trying to hold a lead.
In LaCivita’s opinion, most of the fundamentals of the race have not changed. The economy and immigration, he said, will remain the campaign’s top issues—even though he acknowledged the tone of the convention has shifted to “unity”—and the race will likely come down to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as the Biden campaign’s last stand.
“We have 20 paths to victory,” LaCivita boasted. “They have one” in the trio of Rust Belt states.
Just a year and a half ago, most of the MAGA faithful wouldn’t have been able to pick LaCivita out of a lineup. The seasoned campaign operative, previously best known for his work on the infamous “swiftboating” smear campaign against 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry, used to enjoy a level of anonymity unseen by previous Trump campaign leaders.
When asked by a college student on Tuesday about the campaign’s new emphasis on party unity and past attacks from the likes of Trump’s former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley—who has been given a primetime speaking slot at the convention Tuesday night—LaCivita didn’t mince words.
“Look, our standpoint is very clear… I look at unity, and it’s obviously a chance to bring the country together,” he began, before sounding more like himself.
“As I always say,” LaCivita said, “there’s no free shots on goal. You do not get to take a shot at, attack our candidate, in a political context and not get a response—especially not a response from me.”
