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George Conway achieved national notoriety as a foe of President Donald Trump. Now he’s aiming to take that fight to Congress — as a Democrat.
The vocal Trump critic and former Republican officially launched his campaign for New York’s 12th Congressional District today with very specific goals: impeaching Trump and passing “reconstruction” laws to prevent future Trump-like presidencies. If he wins, he insists he doesn’t plan to stay long.
Conway, 62, who came to Washington with his then-wife, former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, has played a ubiquitous role as a Trump critic after he soured on the president and removed himself from consideration in the administration in 2017. But the former Republican lawyer said it’s “unfair” to lob criticism from the sidelines, so he’s getting in the actual ring to succeed retiring Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
His campaign is a bet that his status as Trump foil will help him break out in a crowded field and quell any concerns over his prior party registration.
“I view myself as a special teams player for this moment, to help us get through this, what I hope to be the final crisis of Trumpism,” Conway told Semafor in an interview.
“I can’t imagine myself serving more than two terms,” he added. “The two things that need to happen is accountability and reconstruction. If we can’t do that in the next two to four years, we’re in deep, deep trouble.”
To get to Congress, Conway has to win the seat in a highly Democratic-leaning Manhattan district, which will require navigating a primary that includes Jack Schlossberg of the Kennedy family and state lawmakers. In a nod to the party’s base, Conway says he won’t take corporate PAC money in the race, but he’ll still have to convince voters to nominate a longtime prominent GOP lawyer.
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Many Democrats aren’t making their campaigns about removing Trump from office. But in a bright blue place like Manhattan, the primary campaign may boil down to who can most effectively take on Trump.
Conway said he understands that New Yorkers are concerned about affordability, too, but said it’s difficult to have an “honest” conversation about improving the country while Trump is still president. Conway said Democrats need lawyers like him to effectively prosecute the case against Trump and said in his launch video that he will “not be an ordinary member of Congress.”
“He’s committing high crimes and misdemeanors almost every day,” Conway told Semafor of Trump. “Anybody who takes an oath to the Constitution … is obligated to see to it that somebody who commits high crimes and misdemeanors in the executive branch is impeached and removed from office.”
Still, Conway is not completely positioning himself as a Democratic bomb-thrower. He declined to take a shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., calling him “a remarkable public servant over decades.” And he said he supports Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., as House Democratic leader, calling him a “magnificent spokesman for the Democratic House majority.”
Conway acknowledged that Democrats might give his candidacy a little extra scrutiny given his Republican history, but insisted he’s prepared to meet the challenge.
“There are going to be some people who are skeptical,” he said. “I walk down the streets of New York over the last several years and people say, ‘thank you.’ And these are Democrats, so, I mean, we’re standing for the same thing.”