CNN

Candy Crowley

Candy Crowley is CNN's award-winning chief political correspondent and anchor of State of the Union with Candy Crowley, a political hour of newsmaker interviews and analysis of the week’s most important issues. Crowley took the reins of State of the Union in February 2010. In her role as chief political correspondent, Crowley covers a broad range of stories, including presidential, congressional and gubernatorial races and major legislative developments on Capitol Hill. Crowley was selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates to moderate a 2012 general election debate between President Obama and Gov. Romney. The town hall debate, scheduled for Oct. 16, 2012 in Hempstead, NY, will be the first debate moderated by a woman in two decades.

Crowley’s assignments have taken her to all 50 states and around the world. Since taking the anchor chair for State of the Union, Crowley has interviewed top newsmakers including: Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; former President George W. Bush together with his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; former Vice President Dick Cheney together with his daughter Liz Cheney; and 2012 Republican presidential candidates Rep. Michele Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

Crowley has co-anchored key primary and caucus nights throughout America’s Choice 2012 election coverage. She played a pivotal role in CNN’s America Votes 2008 Peabody Award-winning coverage, traveling to both conventions, every debate and additional stops along the campaign trail. In 2009, she earned a prestigious Gracie Allen Award for coverage of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House. She also was part of the network’s Emmy Award-winning 2006 midterm election coverage.

She has covered the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, Bob Dole, Jesse Jackson, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan, among others. Since the presidential nomination of Jimmy Carter, she has covered all but one of the national political conventions. She was also granted an exclusive sit-down interview with President George W. Bush days before he left office.

Among her most vivid memories as a reporter, Crowley counts the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast; the impeachment trial of President Clinton; Election Night 2000; ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy; Ronald Reagan’s trips to China, Bitburg and Bergen-Belsen; the night the United States bombed Libya; and the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

Crowley began her broadcast journalism career in Washington, D.C., as a newsroom assistant for Metromedia radio station WASH. She has served as an anchor for Mutual Broadcasting and as a general assignment and White House correspondent for the Associated Press, where she covered most of the Reagan era before moving on to NBC-TV to become a general assignment correspondent in NBC’s Washington bureau. She came to CNN from NBC News in 1987. Prior to her current role, Crowley served as a congressional correspondent for the network.

In 2012, Crowley delivered the commencement address at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, where she was presented with the Maharishi Award. Also in 2012, Crowley was honored with the American News Women’s Club Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 2005, Crowley was honored with the Edward R. Murrow award and the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for excellence in journalism for her reporting on the 2004 presidential election. In 2004, Crowley won the Gracie Allen Award in the “National News Story-Series” category for “War Stories” and a National Headliner and a Cine award for CNN Presents: Fit to Kill. In 2003, Crowley won an Emmy for her work on CNN Presents Enemy Within. She won the 1999 DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award for her coverage of the impeachment and trial of President Bill Clinton. She won the 2003 and 1998 Dirksen Awards for distinguished reporting on Congress from the National Press Foundation and the 1997 Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for her coverage of Bob Dole’s campaign for the presidency. She received the Associated Press Broadcasters’ Award for spot news reporting for her coverage of the Reagan campaign, as well as the AP Award for in-depth coverage of the 1980 Reagan campaign. Her reporting on more than a dozen 1992 U.S. Senate campaigns was runner-up for the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for Outstanding Journalism. Crowley also won the Columbia University’s Armstrong Award for Freedom is My Woman, a documentary on a prison cellblock takeover.

Crowley earned a bachelor’s degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

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