It was a significant achievement when Donald Trump became elected that Kellyanne Conway became the first woman to ever help capture the presidency as the winning candidate’s campaign manager.
Her background as a pollster who helped the Republicans connect with women voters might have been a main reason she was brought on to the campaign, but her influence quickly grew. Some are even speculating that her dedication to the Trump campaign might earn her an administrative position once the team transitions to Washington.
Here are five things to know about the 49-year-old Kellyanne Conway:
Her expertise is in public polling
Conway graduated with a law degree from George Washington University, and founded her own polling company in 1995 after time spent with Luntz Research Companies. According to a profile by People, she’s done work on the behalf of heavy-hitting conservatives such as Newt Gingrich, former Vice President Dan Quayle and Sen. Fred Thompson .
Her experience also includes polling for companies like American Express, ABC News and Major League Baseball in order to help corporations connect with female American consumers.
She originally led a super PAC devoted to Ted Cruz
Dating back to 2015, Conway had worked for the Keep the Promise PAC devoted to electing Trump arch rival Sen. Ted Cruz. She helped organize attack ads against Trump at the time, understanding his weak spots, and was a frequent guest on cable news channels as a Cruz surrogate.
That all changed when she was brought on to connect women voters with Trump and eventually lead his campaign. That made her the first woman to run a Republican presidential campaign, and at the time her candidate was down in the polls by 10 percent to Hillary Clinton.
She wrote the book on women voters
President-elect Donald Trump and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway celebrate during an election night rally Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Her book, “What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live” was penned along with Democrat Celinda Lake in 2005. It was authored to promote a women-centric society, where singles in the workplace take charge of political decisions and force American power structures to re-think their gender makeup.
If that sounds a lot like Ivanka Trump’s mission, that’s because it is — her own book, “Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success” echoes many of the same themes as her father’s campaign manger.
Her TV attacks on the Clintons date back to the 1990s
Trump might have selected Conway for no other reason than to have a feminine presence on TV at a time when his machismo and anti-political correctness was rubbing seemingly everyone the wrong way, especially women.
Arguing against the Clintons is nothing new to her. Back in the ’90s, then known as Kellyanne Fitzgerald (the lawyer), she appeared on talk shows like during the ’96 election when she said, “To some [women] character means substantive positions on the issues, to others it means you broke your promise. To others, it is a matter of personal virtue. But to most, it’s just this whole idea of general honesty, trustworthy and integrity. And right now, Bill Clinton doesn’t score as high as Bob Dole on those issues with women.”
She might have been Trump’s most important hire in the campaign
As many think pieces have noted, Conway’s made frequent appearances on television down the stretch, in which she fended off journalists’ questions over Trump’s veracity and complicated relations with women. It was her central role at a time when his “grab ’em by the p–y” remarks made all the headlines in October.
Conway is primed to advance her career in Washington after her work as the “Trump whisperer.”
As she has done over the course of her career, Conway went to bat for her boss in a big way — arguing relentlessly that his social and economic conservatism might be just what the country needs. She did it with a disarming smile, and it worked: 56 percent of white women voted for Trump, something none of the other pollsters could have ever predicted.