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. 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.
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. 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.
In July 2024, Fox News announced that Conway will host a weekly program on the network’s streaming platform, Fox Nation, called Here's The Deal with Kellyanne Conway.
