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 administration of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2020.

Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was born on January 20, 1967, in the Atco section of Waterford Township, New Jersey, to Diane (née DiNatale) and John Fitzpatrick.

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.

In the 1990s, Conway, along with other young conservative women Laura Ingraham, Barbara Olson, and Ann Coulter, helped turn punditry into "stylish stardom" in both Washington and cable television and credited with setting forth Washington, D.C.'s "sexual awakening."

In another review of the era in the capital, Conway (then known as Fitzpatrick) put it that her "broad mind and small waist have not switched places".

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."

Conway graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Trinity College, Washington, D.C. (now Trinity Washington University), where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

She earned a Juris Doctor with honors from the George Washington University Law School in 1992.

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

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.

While a student at Trinity College, she had met and become friends with Frank Luntz, the founder, on a year abroad at Oxford University.

In 1995, she founded her own firm, the Polling Company.

Conway's company has consulted on consumer trends, often trends regarding women.

Conway's clients have included Vaseline, American Express and Hasbro.

Conway lived in Trump World Tower from 2001 to 2008 and conducted private polls for Trump in late 2013 when he was considering running for governor of New York.

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 has previously held roles as campaign manager and strategist in the Republican Party, and was formerly president and CEO of the Polling Company/WomanTrend.

In the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Conway initially endorsed Ted Cruz and chaired a pro-Cruz political action committee.

After Cruz withdrew from 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.

After Trump's inauguration, Conway was embroiled in a series of controversies: using the phrase "alternative facts" to describe fictitious and disproven attendance numbers for Trump's inauguration; speaking multiple times of a "Bowling Green massacre" that never occurred; and claiming that Michael Flynn had the full confidence of the president hours before he was dismissed.

Members of Congress from both parties called for an investigation of an apparent 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.

In August 2020, Conway left the administration.

This came after months of a public feud between herself and her teenage daughter, Claudia, who lambasted her in the media, politically and personally, and threatened to seek legal emancipation.

In 2022, Conway joined Fox News as a contributor.

She frequently appears as a guest/host on a variety of programs including Hannity, The Five, Outnumbered, The Big Weekend Show and more.

Conway also contributed to Fox's 2022 Midterm Election coverage.

Since 2024, Conway has been paid by the Club for Growth to advocate on behalf of TikTok and its parent company ByteDance.