The Founder.

In the summer of 1995, a nineteen-year-old Christopher Gergen knocked doors in the Baton Rouge heat for Senator Bob Dole's presidential campaign. He was a volunteer. He was not paid and he was not supposed to be there. He showed up anyway.

It was his first race. It was his first contact with the work — the sidewalk education that would become thirty years of operator judgment.

On September 12, 2001, Christopher walked into a Navy recruiter's office. The recruiter told him he was thirty pounds overweight and to come back when he wasn't.

He came back six weeks later, thirty pounds lighter. He was sworn in on October 31, 2001. He was at boot camp two weeks later, just before Thanksgiving.

He served honorably as an Aircrewman — Electronic Warfare Operator (EWOP) — and Aviation Electronics Technician. He held a TS/SCI clearance. He completed SERE and Advanced SERE, and Signals Intelligence School. The details of the work are classified.

He was not a combat veteran and does not present himself as one. The heroes are the men and women who saw combat. He did his part. He was one of many.

After his service, Christopher built a financial practice at a Fortune 500 firm. He held Series 7 and Series 66 licenses as an Investment Advisor Representative. He managed client money under state and federal fiduciary standards — legally required to act in the client's best interest.

He walked away from his profitable practice in 2014 to run for office. It was grueling financially. He has never regretted it. It is not for the weak. He would not recommend it.

In 2014, Christopher ran for the Oregon State House of Representatives. He believed the Republican Party would back him. They told him they would. They committed their support with a handshake.

Midway through the race, they pulled their support to focus on other races.

He had done nothing wrong. He hit the doors. He gave the speeches. He attended the events. He did the fundraisers. He was blasted on election night. He lost.

He hated every minute of being a candidate. He learned something from the experience he could not have learned any other way:

Six months later, in April 2015, Christopher founded Dark Horse Political in Eugene, Oregon.

Not to become a candidate again — he never will. To be the firm he wished he'd had.

The firm was built to serve the candidates the party would not back. The ones who did not wait their turn. The ones the county chair told to sit down, who decided to stand up instead.

Since 2015, Dark Horse Political has grown into a political technology firm operating at every level of American politics — federal, state, county, municipal.

Christopher served as State Political Director for Donald Trump's 2016 Oregon operation, April through October of that year.

He ran the Loren Culp campaign that earned more raw votes than any Republican gubernatorial candidate in Washington State history.

He has worked with candidates across the country whose engagements remain confidential under NDA — and, in the firm's tradition, will stay that way.

In March 2023, he published WIN. — 353 pages of operating doctrine, written for candidates, drawn from thirty years of the work. The same year, he began building the platforms that now underwrite every campaign the firm runs.