How ‘Never Trump’ media outlet The Bulwark factors into New York’s Democratic primary
As the high-profile attorney George Conway campaigns in a crowded Democratic congressional primary in New York, he’s singularly focused on one issue: defeating President Donald Trump’s agenda. Yet as Conway competes for a seat in one of the nation’s most liberal districts, the bulk of his personal income over the last year came from a media outlet with ties to old-school conservatives.
Center Enterprises, the parent company of anti-Trump media outlet The Bulwark, paid Conway more than $330,000 between January 2025 and April 24, 2026, a new financial disclosure report shows. His role at The Bulwark, where he co-hosted the podcast “George Conway Explains it All (to Sarah Longwell),” was by far his largest source of “earned income,” according to the disclosure report.
From Republican to Democrat
A decade after nearly joining Trump’s first administration before becoming one of the president’s most vocal critics, Conway launched his campaign in January to succeed retiring veteran Rep. Jerry Nadler in Manhattan’s 12th Congressional District. It’s unclear whether Conway remained on The Bulwark’s payroll after launching his congressional bid.
Conway’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Straight Arrow.
A former Republican, Conway switched teams after Trump “hijacked” the conservative movement and “twisted it into a scam for corruption, cruelty and authoritarian power,” according to his campaign website. Trump, for his part, has called Conway a “Stone cold LOSER,” and celebrated his divorce from Kellyanne Conway, who was a top White House aide to Trump from 2017 to 2020.
“George has seen firsthand how big money poisons our politics,” his campaign website says. “That’s why he won’t take a dime of corporate PAC money and is running a people-powered grassroots campaign to fight back against Trump’s MAGA madness.”
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With longtime New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler set to retire, more than a dozen candidates are vying to replace him.
His financial disclosure makes clear, however, his ties to a prominent national political commentary outlet
What are Conway’s ties to Republicans?
As Conway vies to represent New York City’s wealthiest congressional district, he’s made his background as a former Republican and leading voice in the “Never Trump movement” a key pitch to voters in deep-blue Manhattan. Other contenders include state Assembly member Micah Lasher — who secured Nadler’s endorsement — and Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of former President John F. Kennedy.
“A former Republican, now a Democrat, I fought Trump publicly in every way I could, and I paid a price,” Conway said in the launch ad for his campaign. “I’ll never regret standing up to Trump or for the victims he abused.”
Conway reportedly advised columnist E. Jean Carroll to sue Trump for rape. In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in 1996.
Before launching his campaign, Conway was a regular facet at The Bulwark which, according to its website, was founded in 2019 to “provide analysis and reporting in defense of America’s liberal democracy.”
In fact, the brand’s key players have deep ties to the pre-Trump Republican Party. Among them is the political strategist Sarah Longwell, conservative commentator and longtime talk radio host Charlie Sykes and neoconservative writer Bill Kristol. Kristol was the founder and editor-at-large of the now-defunct political magazine The Weekly Standard, which Politico called “the in-flight magazine of Air Force One” while George W. Bush was president.
AllSides, which rates media bias, classifies The Bulwark as carrying a leftwing agenda. The outlet announced in December that Conway was “stepping away to run for Congress.”
Now, New Yorkers get to decide. Is Conway, who played a key role in former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, the future of the Democratic Party? He hopes so. When Manhattan voters show up to the polls June 23, they’ll get to choose whether a media-backed crusade against the White House is their top priority, too.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
