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Kellyanne Conway

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Kellyanne Conway
Conway in March 2016.
Born
Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick

(1967-01-20) January 20, 1967 (age 57)
Camden, New Jersey
Occupation(s)Lawyer, campaign manager
Political partyRepublican

Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway (née Fitzpatrick; born January 20, 1967) is an American Republican campaign manager, strategist, and pollster. She is president and CEO of The Polling Company / WomanTrend, and has been a regular political commentator on CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, and more. She has been a guest on shows such as Good Morning America, Real Time with Bill Maher, Meet the Press, and Hannity.

She became campaign manager for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on August 17, 2016.[1]

Career

Before entering politics, Conway pursued a career in law. After receiving her B.A. in Political Science in 1989 from Trinity College, Washington, D.C. (now Trinity Washington University), she earned a J.D. in 1992 from the George Washington University Law School and then clerked for a judge in Washington, D.C. She also spent four years as an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law.[2][3]

Conway entered the polling business with Wirthlin Group, a GOP polling firm which worked for Ronald Reagan. She also worked for a period for Luntz Research Companies before founding her own firm, The Polling Company, in 1995. Among the political figures Conway has worked for are Congressman Jack Kemp; former Vice President Dan Quayle; Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; Senator Fred Thompson; and Congressman (now Indiana Governor) Mike Pence.[2] She worked as the senior advisor to Newt Gingrich during his 2012 United States presidential election campaign.[4]

In addition to her political opinion research work, Conway has directed demographic and attitudinal survey projects for trade associations and private companies, including American Express, ABC News, Major League Baseball, and Ladies Home Journal.[2] Her firm The Polling Company also includes WomanTrend, a research and consulting division created to better connect corporate America with the female consumer. WomanTrend monitors female consumers as well as a multitude of current and prospective lifestyle, home, work, entertainment, technological, and generational trends affecting all consumers.[2]

Conway has been featured frequently as a commentator on polling and the political scene, having appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NY1 and the Fox News Channel, in addition to various radio programs. She has received the Washington Post's “Crystal Ball” award for accurately predicted elections.[2] In 2012, in an interview with the Family Research Council, Conway compared Republican criticism of Todd Akin (R-MO), one of Conway's clients, to the siege in 1993 of cult leader David Koresh. An Akin representative said that Conway's comments were "stupid." Conway said she was not comparing Akin to Koresh, but instead comparing the FBI's tactics to force Koresh out with the Republican's tactics to force Akin out of the 2012 election.[5] Conway also defended Akin's position of opposing a “rape” exception for a hypothetical abortion ban on grounds that women’s bodies had mysterious ways of avoiding conception in cases of “legitimate rape.”[6]

In August 2015, she became the president of the Promise I Super-PAC, which supported the 2016 presidential campaign of Texas senator Ted Cruz and was funded by hedge-fund tycoon Robert Mercer. [7] After Donald Trump won the Republican Presidential nomination, the PAC morphed into the “Defeat Crooked Hillary PAC.”[6]

On July 1, 2016, Trump announced he hired Conway for a senior advisory position.[8] Conway was expected to advise Trump on how to better appeal to female voters.[8] When the Trump campaign hired Conway, it referred to her as “widely regarded as an expert on female consumers and voters."[9] Conway became the Trump campaign's campaign manager in August 2016.[10] This made her the first woman to run a Republican general election presidential campaign.[10] Conway said that Trump is "great when he pivots."[11]

Personal life

Born as Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick in Camden, New Jersey,[12] she was raised in Hammonton, New Jersey where she graduated from St. Joseph High School.[13] She is married to George T. Conway III, a litigation partner at the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The couple have four children and live in the New York City area.[2] George Conway was an adviser to Paula Jones in her lawsuit against Bill Clinton.[14] She is of Irish and Italian descent.[15]

Further reading

In 2005, Conway and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake co-authored What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live (Free Press/Simon and Schuster, 2005; ISBN 0-7432-7382-6)

Mass Connections, Inc. commissioned Conway's research services to inform Volumes 1–3 of the Touch America series, including The Consumer Connection, The Shopper Connection, and Connecting with Consumers ... IN STORE· ON LINE· IN LIFE.[16]

References

  1. ^ Parker, Ashley; Haberman, Maggie (17 August 2016). "Donald Trump, in Shake-Up, Hires Breitbart Executive for Top Campaign Post". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Kellyanne Conway biography". pollingcompany.com. Retrieved 2016-08-22.
  3. ^ Ballotpedia article on Kellyanne Conway
  4. ^ Gingrich: "the next 10 days are the most important", foxnewsinsider.com, January 11, 2012; accessed September 13, 2015.
  5. ^ McDermott, Kevin (September 28, 2012). "Akin consultant compares GOP attacks to the siege on Waco". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved September 30, 2012.
  6. ^ a b Ed Kilgore, "Meet Kellyanne Conway – Trump's New Campaign Manager" New York Magazine, August 17, 2016, Retrieved August 18, 2016
  7. ^ Michael Falcone (August 4, 2015) The Note: Donald Trump on Top ABC News
  8. ^ a b Bailey, Holly (July 1, 2016). "Departures come as steady a campaign operation that has been shaken by internal drama". Yahoo Politics. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  9. ^ Stassa Edwards "Trump Campaign Hires 'Gender Gap' Expert" The Slot, July 1, 2016, Retrieved August 18, 2016
  10. ^ a b "Kellyanne Conway Becomes First Woman to Run GOP Presidential Campaign; Nets Yawn". Nation.foxnews.com. 2006-10-01. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
  11. ^ Struyk, Ryan (ryanstruyk). "Kellyanne Conway on MSNBC: '" [sic] I think he’s great when he pivots,' she said. 'I would encourage him to do even more pivoting.'" 27 September 2016, 4:13 AM. Tweet.
  12. ^ CNN, Donald Trump campaign manager: 'No question to me' Obama was born in US http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/09/politics/kellyanne-conway-donald-trump-birtherism/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Most+Recent%29
  13. ^ http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/09/meet_the_nj_native_whos_running_donald_trumps_camp.html#incart_most-read_politics_article
  14. ^ Conason, Joe (1998-02-16). "Drudge's Mystery Source? It's Wachtell's Conway". Observer. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
  15. ^ Kessler, Ronald (September 22, 2008). "GOP Strategist: McCain Will Win". Newsmax.com. Newsmax. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  16. ^ Touch America, Mass Connections.
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