Kevin Roberts (political strategist)

Roberts was born June 24, 1974 in Lafayette, Louisiana, to James A. Roberts Sr. and Susan P. Rabalais (née Pitre).^[5][6] He has one sister, Lori Roberts Romero.^[5] Roberts' parents divorced in 1979 when he was four. His father struggled with alcoholism, and his brother took his own life at 15.^[7] Roberts graduated from Lafayette High School in 1992, earned a bachelor's degree in history magna cum laude from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1996, earned a Master of Arts in history from Virginia Tech in 1999, and earned a Ph.D. in American history from University of Texas at Austin in 2003.^[1][5]

Roberts worked as an assistant professor of history at New Mexico State University from 2003 to 2005.^[8]

Roberts served as president of Wyoming Catholic College from 2013 to 2016 when he accepted his position as executive vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

During his tenure as president of Wyoming Catholic College, Roberts led the institution to an outright rejection of Title IV federal student loans and grants, citing religious liberty concerns.^[9] The decision made the college one of just a few colleges in the nation to reject such funding. In an article on the decision, The New York Times described Roberts and his students as "cowboy Catholics" for their independence.^[10]

In October 2021, it was announced that Roberts had been selected to replace Kay Coles James as president of the Heritage Foundation.^[11][12]

In September 2023, Roberts was selected as president of Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, after the executive director, Jessica Anderson, took a leave of absence in July 2023.^[13][14] Roberts "serves both organizations in a joint role."^[15]

In January 2024, Roberts said that he did not believe that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He also said that he saw Heritage's role as "institutionalizing Trumpism," adding "the Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated."^[16]

When asked during a June 2024 interview if Heritage would accept the results of the 2024 presidential election regardless of its outcome, Roberts replied, "yes, if there isn't massive fraud like there was in 2020." Despite the persistence of an election denial movement, no evidence of material election fraud in 2020 was found. When presented with data from the Heritage election fraud database indicating there were just 1,513 proven instances of voter fraud in the United States since 1982, Roberts responded that fraud is "very hard to document, and the Democrat party is very good at fraud."^[17][18] Roberts also asserted that liberals "are supporting legislation that abortion can happen until three days after the person's born."^[19][20]

Appearing on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast in July 2024 to be interviewed by former Congressman Dave Brat, Roberts said: "Let me speak about the radical left. You and I have both been parts of faculties and faculty senates, and understand that the left has taken over our institutions [...] In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We’re in the process of taking this country back [...] our side is winning.”^[21][22] "We ought to be really encouraged by what happened yesterday," said Roberts, in reference to the Supreme Court deciding in former President Donald Trump's case that presidents have significant immunity against being prosecuted for actions in office.^[22][23] Roberts continued: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be".^[23] Shortly after, the Foundation released a statement which added, "Unfortunately, they have a well established record of instigating the opposite," though right-wing groups have been responsible for most political violence in recent history.^[24][25][26]

Days after Trump released a statement seeking to distance himself from Project 2025, Roberts said, "So no hard feelings from any of us at Project 2025 about the statement because we understand Trump is the standard bearer and he's making a political tactical decision there."^[27]

Roberts has authored a book originally scheduled for release on September 24, 2024. It was originally titled Dawn's Early Light: Burning Down Washington to Save America and more recently titled Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America.^[28][29] The volume includes a foreword by vice presidential candidate JD Vance.^[29][30][31] Amid the controversy surrounding Project 2025, in August 2024 Roberts postponed the book release until after the November election.^[32] Roberts launched book promotion events in Manhattan and Washington, D.C. shortly after the election. On November 13, 2024 The Guardian published an account of the weird reception encountered by one of their reporters at one of the promotional events. The reporter was expelled and not allowed to participate although the newspaper had received an invitation to attend the event.^[33]

Colin Dickey of the New Republic says the book reveals paranoid, Stalinist tactics like using conspiracy theories to violently enforce the right's vision for the world.^[34] In the book, Roberts criticizes birth control and law enforcement (preferring more of a heavily-armed frontier-like society), while promoting public prayer as a key tool in the competition with China.^[34]

Roberts has close ties and receives regular spiritual guidance from the Catholic Information Center, led by an Opus Dei priest and incorporated by the archdiocese of Washington, D.C.^[35]

Roberts and his wife, Michelle LaFleur Roberts, who is Catholic, have four children and are members of a Springfield, Virginia parish.^[5][36] His oldest child, Emma Claire, was born while he was writing his doctoral dissertation.^[5]

A number of Roberts' former colleagues from New Mexico State University recalled that he bragged about killing his neighbor's dog with a shovel because the dog's barking annoyed him. Roberts disputed this claim.^[37]

• Roberts, Kevin D. (2003). Slaves and slavery in Louisiana: the evolution of Atlantic world identities, 1791–1831 (PhD thesis). University of Texas at Austin. hdl:2152/885. OCLC 847273464. Retrieved August 8, 2024.
• Roberts, Kevin D. (July 2005). "The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South (review)". Journal of Social History. 38 (4): 1116–1118. doi:10.1353/jsh.2005.0074. Retrieved August 8, 2024.
• Roberts, Kevin D. (2006). African American Issues. Contemporary American Ethnic Issues. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313332401. OCLC 61520286.
• Roberts, Kevin D. (2006). "Demographics". In Finkelman, Paul (ed.). Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195167771. OCLC 62430770.
• Roberts, Kevin D. (2007). "Race and Colonialism in the Americas". In Benjamin, Thomas (ed.). Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 9780028658438. OCLC 67239488.
• Roberts, Kevin D.; Falola, Toyin (2008). The Atlantic world, 1450–2000. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253349705. OCLC 177068609.
• Roberts, Kevin D. (October 2015). "Mother church or Uncle Sam". First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (256): 19–218. Retrieved August 8, 2024.
• Roberts, Kevin (2024). Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America. Foreword by JD Vance. Broadside Books. ISBN 978-0063353503.^[38][39]