George Conway says he never expected to run for Congress. And if you’d asked, he says, “I would have laughed.”
But Conway, a former Republican once married to Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, says his decision to run as a Democrat in New York is no laughing matter. One of President Donald Trump’s fiercest critics, the 62-year-old lawyer told CNN he has one goal: To take on the president.
“I have the skills that are needed right now, at this moment, at this unique time,” Conway said. “We have basically a criminal president, a convicted criminal, a man who is committing high crimes and misdemeanors in violation of his oath each and every day.”
It is not an accident that Conway is officially announcing his bid to run for Congress with this video on January 6, the fifth anniversary of the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.
But it’s unclear how a former Republican will fare in one of the bluest districts in the country. And Conway is joining a crowded field.
The Democratic primary is wide open, and the list of candidates to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York’s 12th congressional district includes former President John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg, who has a large social media following, as well as New York state Rep. Micah Lasher, who represents the West side of Manhattan, and New York state Rep. Alex Bores, whose district is on the East side of Manhattan.
War of the Roses
Conway’s congressional campaign is a long way from 2016 when he voted for Trump, and his then-wife, Kellyanne Conway, steered the 45th president to victory as his campaign manager.
“I was crying in joy for her,” said Conway. “I didn’t really realize how bad, how horrible this guy would be.”
At the time, Conway was a partner at Wachtell Lipton, a prominent law firm in New York, where he worked on commercial litigation.
When Trump won, the Conways moved to Washington, where Kellyanne became a senior White House advisor, and George was the administration’s pick to be head of the Civil Division at the Justice Department.
But privately, he started having reservations about Trump, and withdrew himself from consideration for the DOJ post in June 2017.
The next year, he went public attacking Trump and gained millions of followers on social media. He also left the Republican Party and co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and the Society for the Rule of Law.
“I was a Republican until 2018 when I realized it had become a personality cult, and it no longer stood for things that I had stood for for many years,” Conway said.
Along the way, he also spent more than $1.5 million attacking Trump with tv ads and billboards, as well as donating to Democratic candidates.
In response, Trump hit back on social media, making fun of Conway calling him “Mr. Kellyanne Conway” and “a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell.”
“He said much worse,” Conway added, noting, for instance, that Trump also called him “Moonface” in 2020, which Conway believes was mocking his Filipino heritage.
Conway acknowledges that breaking with Trump came at a personal cost. He lost friends, and while he wouldn’t go into detail, implies that it hurt his marriage, which ended in divorce in 2023.
“I’m just not going to go there,” Conway said. “I mean, it cost me a lot. Let’s just put it that way.”
Kellyanne Conway did not respond to a request for comment on George Conway’s congressional run.
‘Why don’t you run?’
The idea for Conway’s congressional race came from his friend, MSNOW commentator and journalist Molly Jong-Fast, who encouraged him to run after a group of Senate Democrats cut a deal to end the month-long government shutdown in November.
“We commiserated about that and talked about, well, there need to be more Democrats who are really out there understanding the battle against Trump and fighting at Trump. And she said to me, ‘Why don’t you run?’” Conway said.
Jong-Fast suggested the open seat in New York, and Conway said he quickly embraced the idea. He hired pollster Anna Greenberg, a campaign staff, and tapped E. Jean Carroll lawyer Roberta Kaplan and Anthony Scaramucci, a fellow anti-Trump former Republican, as his campaign finance co-chairs.
Kaplan, a lifelong Democrat who was introduced to Carroll through Conway, said it does not matter to her that Conway is a former Republican.
“For me, absolutely not,” Kaplan told CNN. “In today’s world, what arguably matters most is bravery. And George is one of the most courageous people I know.”
But Conway has plenty of competition and will have to deal with questions about whether he is a real New Yorker and Democrat.
“I welcome George to the race, to the city, and to the Democratic Party,” Bores, one of the other Democrats in the race, said in a statement to CNN. “We are a big tent party and a welcoming city. Tell him to give me a call when he gets to town; there are so many great restaurants to share if he’s willing to venture a few blocks away from the TV studios he’s more familiar with.”
Gale Brewer, the former Manhattan borough president who is supporting Lasher in the primary, said that while the district certainly embraces Conway’s anti-Trump message, that doesn’t differentiate him from the other Democrats running.
“You just can’t fly in and think these folks are going to vote for you. That’s my experience,” Brewer said. “You really have to know the people on the ground, and not just show up Johnny-come-lately.”
Conway argues that he has longstanding ties to New York City, where he lived and worked as a lawyer at Wachtell Lipton. In addition, he recently registered to vote in New York, rented an apartment, and even got his Corgi, Clyde, a city dog license.
He also says he’s in a serious relationship with Ellen Braaten, a child psychologist and professor at Harvard Medical School who lives in the district.
“This is where I made my career for 30 years,” Conway said. “I want to make this place, this district, better. I want to make the country better, and we can’t get to really finish that job — we can nibble at it a little bit, maybe — until we do something about Donald Trump.”
‘Either the stupidest thing… or the best thing’
Asked about other issues, like affordability and constituent services, Conway says that his first priority is going after Trump.
“The best way to achieve those constituent services is to get rid of Donald Trump, to hold him accountable, to impeach and to remove him, which is really a moral obligation and a constitutional obligation of people who take an oath of office when they become members of Congress to investigate that and to pass laws,” Conway said.
He has allies among never-Trump conservatives who are bullish on his candidacy, even in a liberal district in the middle of Manhattan.
“If he wins, and assuming Democrats take the House, he could be a very significant figure in Congress. He won’t be your typical freshman,” said Bill Kristol, another longtime anti-Trump conservative.
David Lat, a legal journalist who worked as an associate at Wachtell Lipton when Conway was a partner, said that Conway has a “big personality” and was “far more colorful and interesting than your typical litigator in big law.”
“I think that some of us felt that George’s talents, personality and insights were not fully utilized in the world of big law,” said Lat, who founded the legal news site Original Jurisdiction. “So George over the years found different ways to channel this.”
Conway says that he’s not trying to become a career politician. He sees himself as a “special teams player” who only serves for a few years.
“I don’t intend to be doing this when I am 66 or 67 or 68,” Conway said. “I want to do this for one reason, and that is to help get this, our governmental system, back on track, with something back to normal, at least back toward normal.”
Until recently, Conway co-hosted a podcast on the Bulwark, a news site that describes itself as a “home for the politically homeless.” On an episode last month announcing his departure from the show, he teased his congressional run and his chances of winning.
It is, he said, “either the stupidest thing I’ve ever done or the best thing, we’ll see.”
By CNN
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