Francis Xavier De Luca is a retired Colonel in the United States Marine Corps with over 30 years of service. He served as President of the Civitas Institute, a conservative policy organization in North Carolina, until announcing his retirement in spring 2018. He ran as a Republican candidate in a special election for North Carolina's 3rd Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He currently chairs the North Carolina State Board of Elections. Born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, De Luca earned an MA in Political Science from the University of West Florida between 1987 and 1988 and is an alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He is married to Cynthia De Luca and has two children. De Luca resides in Wilmington, North Carolina, and maintains an active presence on X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @fxdeluca.