Kellyanne Conway Bio
Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway (née Fitzpatrick; born January 20, 1967) is an American political consultant, pollster, and commentator who served as Senior Counselor to President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2020. She is the first woman to have run a successful U.S. presidential campaign, having managed Trump’s bid during the final ten weeks of the 2016 race. Conway later founded the Polling Company/WomanTrend and built a reputation as a Republican strategist before joining the Trump administration.
Since leaving the White House in August 2020, Conway has remained a visible media figure. She joined Fox News as a contributor in 2022 and hosted a weekly program on the network’s streaming platform, Fox Nation, in 2024. Her career has combined polling, political strategy, authorship, and frequent television commentary.
Early Life and Background
Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was born on January 20, 1967, in Camden, New Jersey. She was raised by her mother, Diane (née DiNatale), her grandmother, and two unmarried aunts in the Atco section of Waterford Township, New Jersey, after her parents divorced when she was three. Her father, John Fitzpatrick, owned a small trucking company, and her mother worked at a bank. Her father had German, English, and Irish ancestry, while her mother is of Italian descent. The family is Catholic.
Conway has credited eight summers of work on a blueberry farm in Hammonton, New Jersey, with shaping her work ethic. At age 16, she won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant, and at age 20, she won the World Champion Blueberry Packing competition. She graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1985 as class valedictorian, where she sang in the choir, played field hockey, worked on parade floats, and was a cheerleader.
Path to US Politics
Conway attended Trinity College in 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. While a student at Trinity, she met Republican pollster Frank Luntz during a year abroad at Oxford University, a connection that helped steer her toward the polling business.
During law school, Conway worked as a research assistant for the Wirthlin Group, a Republican polling firm. After graduation, she served as a judicial clerk for Judge Richard A. Levie of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia before choosing to work at Luntz Research Companies. In 1995, she founded the Polling Company, a firm that consulted on consumer trends and political campaigns, which later included the WomanTrend research division.
Kellyanne Conway Career
Early Career (1995–2015)
Through the Polling Company/WomanTrend, Conway built a national profile advising Republican clients and major corporations. Her political clients included U.S. representative Jack Kemp, U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, Vice President Dan Quayle, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and U.S. representative Mike Pence. She also directed survey projects for American Express, ABC News, Major League Baseball, and Ladies Home Journal.
In 2005, Conway co-authored the book What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live with Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. The Washington Post recognized her in 2004 with its “Crystal Ball” award for accurately predicting the outcome of that year’s election. She worked as a senior advisor to Gingrich during his 2012 presidential campaign and represented U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin that same year.
Breakthrough (2016–2017)
During the 2016 Republican primaries, Conway endorsed Senator Ted Cruz and chaired a pro-Cruz political action committee called Keep the Promise I, which was largely funded by businessman Robert Mercer. After Cruz suspended his campaign in May 2016, Trump hired Conway as a senior advisor in July 2016. On August 19, 2016, following the resignation of Paul Manafort, Trump named Conway the campaign’s third campaign manager. She served in that role for ten weeks through the November 8 general election, becoming the first woman to successfully run an American presidential campaign. Saturday Night Live began satirizing her in October 2016, with Kate McKinnon portraying her.
On December 22, 2016, Trump announced that Conway would join his administration as Counselor to the President. In November 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Conway would oversee White House efforts to combat the opioid overdose epidemic.
Republican Era (2017–2020)
As Senior Counselor to the President, Conway became one of the administration’s most prominent television defenders. In January 2017, she used the phrase “alternative facts” during a Meet the Press interview to defend statements about Trump’s inauguration crowd size, a phrase that triggered a surge in sales of George Orwell’s 1984. She later referenced a “Bowling Green massacre” that never took place, which she said she meant to call the “Bowling Green terrorists,” referring to two Iraqi refugees who had pleaded guilty to supporting attacks on American soldiers in Iraq.
In February 2017, Conway drew bipartisan condemnation after she publicly endorsed Ivanka Trump’s commercial products on Fox & Friends, prompting ethics complaints and a rebuke from the Office of Government Ethics. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel later determined that she had violated the Hatch Act of 1939 on multiple occasions, and in June 2019, formally recommended that she be removed from federal service, a recommendation the White House rejected. In August 2020, Conway announced her resignation in order to spend more time with her family.
Notable Events and Milestones
Conway is one of the few White House staffers to have received Secret Service protection, which she retained from the 2016 transition until September 2017. In a September 2018 interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, she disclosed that she had been the victim of a sexual assault. In 2022, she published a memoir titled Here’s the Deal (Threshold Editions).
Kellyanne Conway Career Wins
Conway’s most prominent professional achievement is her management of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, which made her the first woman to lead a winning U.S. presidential bid. She also helped guide numerous Republican campaigns and candidates, including Newt Gingrich and Mike Pence, and built one of the most recognized political consulting and polling firms in Washington.
Republican Campaign Highlights
Conway played a central role in helping Trump appeal to female voters during the closing weeks of the 2016 general election campaign, a period in which she served as campaign manager. Earlier in her career, she advised congressional and presidential campaigns for Jack Kemp, Fred Thompson, Dan Quayle, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Pence, and represented Senate candidate Todd Akin in 2012. She also chaired the pro-Cruz Keep the Promise I PAC during the 2016 Republican primary.
Other Wins and Achievements
Conway earned The Washington Post’s “Crystal Ball” award in 2004 for accurately predicting the outcome of the presidential election. She was the World Champion Blueberry Packing competitor at age 20 and won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant at age 16, distinctions she has cited in defining her work ethic. She also co-authored a 2005 book on women’s political and cultural attitudes.
Kellyanne Conway Family
Family Background and Political Lineage
Conway is the daughter of John Fitzpatrick and Diane (née DiNatale) Fitzpatrick, both of whom worked in New Jersey. Her paternal ancestry is German, English, and Irish, and her mother is of Italian descent. She was raised in Atco, New Jersey, by her mother, her grandmother, and two unmarried aunts, and her Catholic upbringing has been a recurring theme in her public remarks.
Personal Life
Conway married George Conway, an attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in 2001. The couple have four children: twins Claudia and George IV, Charlotte, and Vanessa. George Conway became a prominent critic of Donald Trump and co-founded the Lincoln Project in December 2019. In March 2023, Kellyanne and George Conway announced that they were divorcing after 22 years of marriage. The family has resided in Alpine, New Jersey.