CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In the wake of a tense and polarized presidential election, Kellyanne Conway, a prominent political strategist and former adviser to Donald Trump, visited Harvard University to discuss the victory of the president-elect and its broader implications for the nation’s future.
Conway, who made history as the first woman to manage a winning U.S. presidential campaign during Trump’s 2016 bid, went on to serve as his senior counselor from 2017 to 2020. Known for navigating the turbulent media environment, Conway became a prominent and steadfast advocate for Trump, often engaging in high-profile and contentious exchanges with reporters that solidified her role as one of his most loyal and visible supporters.
“Talking is what I love to do. It’s also how I make things happen,” she wrote in her 2022 memoir “Here’s the Deal.”
And even at Harvard, one of the country’s premier Ivy League universities where liberal views dominate campus conversation, Conway seemed at home doing just that. Central to her remarks was one resounding point: “You have to listen to the people,” a posture that Trump embraced throughout his campaign, and a key factor that led to his victory, according to Conway.
Conway left her White House role in 2020 to prioritize her family amidst heightened public scrutiny of her family’s dynamics. Her ex-husband, George Conway, a vocal Trump critic, publicly clashed with Conway over political matters, while their teenage daughter, Claudia, attracted media attention for social media posts critical of both her parents and the administration. But Conway’s tenure in the Trump administration remained highly influential. In her memoir, she described her time in the White House as “the wildest adventure of my life.”
This visit to Harvard was not her first appearance. In 2016, just weeks after Trump’s first presidential victory, Conway and other Trump campaign staffers sparred with Hillary Clinton campaign representatives in a heated exchange that erupted into a “shouting match.” This recent visit started out in a measured tone, but grew confrontational during the question and answer period, as students challenged Conway on her time in the White House and Trump’s agenda.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Setti Warren, director of the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and former Democratic candidate for United States Senate, Conway reflected on a confluence of factors that led to Trump’s win, what this outcome reveals about the nation and its voters, and what the next four years may look like.
“I think that in this life, we all get second chances. We hope we do,” she said. “But I can’t think of a second chance quite as large as the one he’s getting.”
Why Trump won
The Republican victory showed remarkable “demographic and geographic breadth,” Conway noted, with nearly all states, except Nebraska and Washington, showing a slight shift toward the Republican side in terms of raw vote totals. Since 2016, Trump’s campaign has improved its margins among African Americans, Hispanic Americans, union households, Jewish Americans and young voters.
“Mitigating the deficits that any Republican presidential candidate would already have, and then running up the totals among folks who want to vote for you is really what he was able to do in all seven swing states and nationwide,” Conway said.
Then, there was the preference toward the familiar.
“We like to hire people to do a job who’ve already done the job,” she said.
Trump was viewed as the joyful and “forward-looking” candidate, and he infused his campaign with “some fun” by visiting Coachella and McDonald’s, she said. Trump’s authenticity spoke to voters — they can “sniff it out,” she said,— while Kamala Harris’s fleeting strong debate performance failed to translate into a lasting impression of a sincere, authentic candidate.
“For all the talk about joy, he clearly had it, and people followed suit,” she said.
What truly set this election cycle apart, Conway noted, was the Trump campaign’s ability to broaden its reach through emerging platforms like TikTok and podcasts. A prime example was Trump’s three-hour interview with Joe Rogan, which garnered an astonishing 26 million views within its first 24 hours.
In the 2024 election, the Trump campaign also did something other Republicans haven’t before, investing in what Conway called the “non-sexy parts of politics,” laying the groundwork to help equip non-political and less active constituents with information on how and where to vote. Trump’s endorsement of the early, mail-in ballot voting also played a significant role and resulted in a higher number of Republicans voting early in this election than ever before.
“So rather than just be a rebel, they learned how to be a resource to people,” she said.
Americans standing up
But perhaps the most striking takeaway from the election for Conway is the profound role that personal agency and resistance to prescribed narratives played in shaping the election. Modern voters, she argued, are increasingly rejecting being boxed into narrow categories.
“When you look at the sheer breadth of the new Trump coalition in 2024 — this is the election where Americans are standing up and saying: ‘Excuse me, you are just not going to tell me what’s important to me, what’s the greatest consequences to me and how to think based on my race, my gender, my ZIP code, my sexual orientation, my religion.’”
This election, Conway argued, has stirred deep emotions about what people believe is fair, often transcending perceived political divides. She pointed to several examples, such as the belief that plumbers shouldn’t be responsible for paying off the student loans of doctors, or the controversy over transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.
In addition to border control and the economy, one of the defining issues in the 2024 election, she noted, was school choice, especially among parents and communities still grappling with the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. People, she said, want more control over where their children go to school and what is taught there. “Education is a big sleeper issue this time,” Conway remarked. “If I were a Democrat sitting here, I would get on that tomorrow.”
In a biographical aside, Conway reflected on how much the Democratic Party has changed over the years. By all accounts, she said, she should have been a Democrat — half Irish and half Italian, Catholic, and raised in a working-class community. Her father left when she was 3, and she was raised by four strong Catholic Italian women. “(The Democratic Party) was once the party of the workers, but it doesn’t seem like they believe that now,” she said.
‘Find a way to help’
As Trump is assembling his administration, he’s picking people “fluent in America First agenda,” focused on deregulation, border security and restoring the pre-COVID-19 economic and energy landscape. Conway believes various agencies “will go in their own lanes” while also working together across departments. During her time as counselor, Trump didn’t always take her advice, she noted — but he always listened.
“That’s the way, honestly, that we need to unite,” she said.
Conway wants to bring back “democratization of information” where everyone, from billionaires to busy parents and workers, can access direct and transparent communication from the presidency. This approach, partly channeled through Trump’s tweets, albeit often a haphazard barrage, offered people a window and a connection to their government, even if they didn’t always agree with the content.
Trump “needs to tweet like he needs to eat,” Conway said she will tell Trump.
During the question and answer portion, the tone of the gathering shifted, when a student asked Conway about the controversy around her infamous phrase “alternative facts” and whether her approach in the White House was a matter of intentional strategy or mere survival in a chaotic environment. Conway rejected the premise of the question, labeling both options as inaccurate, and clarified that the term “alternative facts” referred to presenting additional information, not fabricating facts.
“You gave me two choices, and they’re both inaccurate,” Conway said. “Do you know what alternative facts meant?” She continued: “I don’t have an answer to a question that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, except to say you can read my book about alternative facts.”
But Conway is hopeful about the path forward for the country and she said her vision doesn’t include divisive rhetoric. Conway invited students to think of productive ways to put their convictions to practice rather than arguing about them. “Stop disagreeing and screaming at each other about the two things on which you will never agree. You already know this. Why are you going to take this to the Thanksgiving table next week? What good does it do anybody? Why do you want to upset people you love?,” she said, adding that it’s not worth losing a relative or a friend over politics.
Instead, she suggested finding a handful of non-political points of agreement, maybe of familial or cultural nature, and turning down the temperature of divisive disagreements. “Looking at someone based on the way they vote and not knowing the full person — it’s really looking at someone through one pane of glass, and not the full picture.” Both parties should unify efforts toward strengthening democracy, Conway suggested.
“The election is over. The hard work begins,” she said. “It’s a big country filled with needs. There’s so much work that needs to be done. I’d say, find a way you can help.”