Today’s Dream Team Scouting Report: Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President #TrumpPresidente #KellyanneConway

Born Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick
January 20, 1967
Atco, New Jersey, U.S.
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) George Conway
Alma mater Trinity Washington University
(BA)
George Washington University
(JD)

Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway is an American Republican campaign manager, strategist, and pollster. She is president and CEO of The Polling Company Inc./Woman Trend, and has been a 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.

Kellyanne Conway views herself as an activist Gen X woman conservative.

On July 1, 2016, Trump announced that he hired Conway for a senior advisory position. Conway was expected to advise Trump on how to better appeal to female voters. Conway became the Trump campaign’s third campaign manager in August 2016. This made her the first woman to run a Republican general election presidential campaign. At the time, Trump was trailing Hillary Clinton by about ten percentage points in various opinion polls. Journalist Ryan Lizza credits Conway with closing the gap in the polls by improving Trump’s effectiveness while giving speeches, using language to appeal to voters and focusing speeches, such as when Trump described America as “a nation of strivers, dreamers, and believers.” Trump ultimately won the presidential election, with Conway being credited by The Guardian for playing a major role in transforming Trump’s campaign and for appealing to female voters.

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. She is very well-educated.

Conway graduated magna cum laude from Trinity College in Washington, D.C., earning a degree in political science. She then studied at Oxford University and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, a prestigious honors society, and later earned a law degree with honors from George Washington University Law School.

2. She’s also a former pageant winner.

Conway grew up in Atco, New Jersey, a town in the southern part of the state, not far from Atlantic City. In 1982, she won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant at 16. Conway was not only a pageant winner but also named the World Champion Blueberry Packer, thanks to eight summers packing blueberries on a farm. Conway credits her experience in the farm in Hammonton, NJ for teaching her a strong work ethic. “The faster you went, the more money you’d make.” “Everything I learned about life and business started on that farm.”

3. She’s worked extensively with Republican lawmakers.

Conway is president and CEO of the Polling Company, which she founded in 1995. Her company often works with Republican candidates to appeal to female voters and the client list reads like a who’s who of conservative politicians and organizations: Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich’s former presidential campaign, Reps. Steve King and Michele Bachmann, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, National Rifle Association, and Family Research Council, Congressman Jack Kemp; Senator Fred Thompson; former Vice President Dan Quayle; amongst others.

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. 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.

Conway has appeared 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 predicting the 2004 elections.

4. She was raised by women.

Conway’s parent divorced when she was 3 years old. “I grew up in a house with my mom and her mom, and two of my mother’s unmarried sisters,” she explained. “So four Italian Catholic women raised me.”

5.  She wrote a book titled What Women Really Want.

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 along with Democratic strategist Celinda Lake. “By delving beneath the radioactive, hot-button issues,” the book’s Amazon description reads, “Lake and Conway discovered common causes with which women are inventing a new age of opportunity — doing it their way and, in the process, improving life for all Americans.”

6. She’s pro-immigration reform (or at least was).

Although President elect Trump’s campaign had been decidedly anti-immigrant — build a wall, shut down Muslim immigration — Conway has a rather enlightened view on this matter. In 2014, she tried to convince Republicans to embrace comprehensive immigration reform and legal status for undocumented workers. She also co-authored a memo for the pro-immigration group FWD.us that delved into the benefits of creating a pathway to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented workers. She was among 16 Republican pollsters to sign the memo.

7. She will be the highest-ranking woman in the White House.
She will be the highest-ranking woman in the White House, according to the New York Times.

 

Tags: Couselor to the President, elections, Kellyanne Conway, MAGA trump