Kellyanne Conway

Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway (née Fitzpatrick; born January 20, 1967) is an American political consultant and pollster who served as Senior Counselor to the President in the first presidency of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2020. She was previously Trump's campaign manager, having been appointed in August 2016; Conway is the first woman to have run a successful U.S. presidential campaign. She previously held roles as a campaign manager and strategist in the Republican Party and was formerly president and CEO of the Polling Company/WomanTrend.

In the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, Conway endorsed Ted Cruz and chaired a pro-Cruz political action committee until Cruz later dropped out of the race.

In July 2016, after Cruz dropped out the race, Trump appointed Conway as a senior advisor and later campaign manager. On December 22, 2016, Trump announced that Conway would join his administration as counselor to the president. On November 29, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Conway would oversee White House efforts to combat the opioid overdose epidemic.

In Conway's role as Senior Counselor to the President, she used the phrase "alternative facts" to describe fictitious attendance numbers for Trump's inauguration. In 2017, members of Congress from both parties called for an investigation of an alleged ethics violation after she publicly endorsed commercial products associated with the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump. In June 2019, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel recommended that Conway be fired for "unprecedented" multiple violations of the Hatch Act of 1939, but she was not fired. In August 2020, Conway left the administration.

Conway is a frequent media commentator. In 2022, she joined Fox News as a contributor, and she appears as a guest or host on a variety of programs, including Hannity, The Five, Outnumbered, The Big Weekend Show, and others. She also contributed to Fox's 2022 midterm election coverage. In July 2024, Fox News announced that Conway would begin to host a weekly program on the network's streaming platform, Fox Nation, called Here's The Deal with Kellyanne Conway.

Early life and education

Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was born on January 20, 1967, in Camden, New Jersey, to Diane (née DiNatale) and John Fitzpatrick, and grew up in the nearby Atco section of Waterford Township, New Jersey. Conway's father had German, English, and Irish ancestry, while her mother is of Italian descent; John Fitzpatrick owned a small trucking company, and Diane worked at a bank. Conway's parents divorced when she was three, and she was raised by her mother, grandmother, and two unmarried aunts in Atco. She graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1985 as class valedictorian. In high school, she also sang in the choir, played field hockey, worked on floats for parades, and was a cheerleader. A 1992 New Jersey Organized Crime Commission report identified Conway's grandfather, Jimmy "The Brute" DiNatale, as a mob associate of the Philadelphia crime family; DiNatale did not reside with Conway's grandmother, Conway, and the rest of her family. Conway's cousin, Mark DeMarco, has stated that while in high school, Conway ordered members of the football team to stop bullying him; according to DeMarco, the bullying stopped. Her family is Catholic.

Conway credits her experience working for eight summers on a blueberry farm in Hammonton, New Jersey, for teaching her a strong work ethic. "The faster you went, the more money you'd make," she said. At age 16, she won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant. At age 20, she won the World Champion Blueberry Packing competition. "Everything I learned about life and business started on that farm," she said in September 2016.

Conway attended Trinity College, Washington, D.C., now Trinity Washington University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. In 1992, she earned a Juris Doctor with honors from the George Washington University Law School.

Career

After graduation, she served as a judicial clerk for Judge Richard A. Levie of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Pollster and consultant

Conway entered the polling business when she was in law school, working as a research assistant for Wirthlin Group, a Republican polling firm. After graduating, she initially considered working for a law firm, but chose to work for Luntz Research Companies instead. As a student at Trinity College, she met and became friends with Frank Luntz, the firm's founder, on a year abroad at Oxford University.

In 1995, she founded her own firm, the Polling Company, which consulted on consumer trends, including trends regarding women. Conway's clients included Vaseline, American Express, and Hasbro. She also provided political consulting service to U.S. representative Jack Kemp, U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, Vice President Dan Quayle, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and U.S. representative (later Vice President) Mike Pence. She worked as the senior advisor to Gingrich during his unsuccessful 2012 United States presidential election campaign. Later, in 2012, she represented U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin. She also directed demographic and attitudinal survey projects for trade associations and private companies, including American Express, ABC News, Major League Baseball, and Ladies Home Journal. Her firm also included WomanTrend, a research and consulting division.

Media commentator

In the 1990s, along with conservative female commentators Laura Ingraham, Barbara Olson, and Ann Coulter, she helped turn punditry into "stylish stardom" in both Washington, D.C. and cable television. and was credited with setting forth Washington, D.C.'s "sexual awakening." In a review of the era in the capital, Conway (then known as Fitzpatrick) said that her "broad mind and small waist have not switched places". Conway, Ingraham, and Coulter were sometimes called "pundettes", and appeared on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect.

Conway appeared as a commentator on polling and politics for ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NY1, Fox News, and various radio programs. In 2004, The Washington Post recognized her with its "Crystal Ball" award for accurately predicting the outcome of that year's election.

2016 presidential election

Ted Cruz support and endorsement

In 2016, Conway endorsed Ted Cruz's presidential candidacy, even though she became acquainted with Donald Trump when living in Trump World Tower years earlier, from 2001 to 2008, and serving on its condo board. She chaired a pro-Cruz political action committee, Keep the Promise I, which was almost entirely funded by businessman Robert Mercer. Conway's organization criticized Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as "extreme" and "not a conservative". On January 25, 2016, Conway criticized Trump as "a man who seems to be offending his way to the nomination." On January 26, Conway criticized Trump's use of eminent domain, saying, "Donald Trump has literally bulldozed over the little guy to get his way."

In mid-June 2016, Cruz suspended his campaign.

2016 Trump campaign

On July 1, 2016, Trump announced that he had hired Conway for a senior advisory position on his presidential campaign. Conway was expected to advise Trump on how to better appeal to female voters. On August 19, following the resignation of Paul Manafort, Trump named Conway the campaign's third campaign manager. She served in this capacity for ten weeks, through the November 8 general election, and was the first woman to successfully run an American presidential campaign, and the first woman to run a Republican general election presidential campaign. Saturday Night Live started satirizing her in October 2016, portrayed by Kate McKinnon. In a January 2017 interview, Conway acknowledged the SNL parody by noting that, "Kate McKinnon clearly sees the road to the future runs through me and not Hillary."

Presidential transition

On November 10, 2016, Conway publicly tweeted that Trump had offered her a White House job. "I can have any job I want", she said on November 28. On November 24, Conway tweeted that she was "Receiving deluge of social media & private comms re: Romney. Some Trump loyalists warn against Romney as sec of state" with a link to an article on Trump loyalists' discontent for the 2012 nominee. Conway told CNN she was only tweeting what she has shared with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence in private.

On November 28, two top sources at the Trump transition team told media outlets that Trump "was furious" at Conway for media comments she made on Trump administration cabinet appointments. The following day, however, Trump released a written statement stating that the campaign sources were wrong and that he had expressed disappointment at her critical comments on Romney. CNBC reported on November 28 that senior officials in the Trump transition "have reportedly been growing frustrated by Conway's failure to become a team player."