“We used a panel of 110 women who liked the governor, despised Trump, and were undecided about the race,” said Jim Barnett, Hogan’s campaign manager. The women in the focus group were registered, Democrats or unaffiliated voters. We talked to them over and over during the course of the campaign to see how they were reacting to advertising and how their attitudes were changing. The campaign asked the focus group — which was conducted by Christine Matthews of Bellwether Research and Consulting — how they felt about various ads and news developments.” 

— Baltimore Sun, November 2018

“Trump can talk about defunding the police or Confederate statues, but I can tell you the No. 1 concern on the minds of parents is whether or not their kids can safely go back to school, and if not how are they going to get through the school year.”

— LA Times, July 2020

“Trump needs — or thinks he needs — fear of ‘the other’ to motivate his base and create enthusiasm,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster. “Right now, people are fearful of Covid-19, but that is inconvenient for Trump, so he is trying to kick up fear about something he thinks will benefit his re-election: angry mobs of leftists tearing down American history.” 

— New York Times, July 2020

“Matthews found that more than one-third of non-incumbent Republican women running for Congress had campaign materials prominently featuring them with guns.”

— NPR, October 2020

“The problem with the Trump campaign is that they want to create a situation where there’s no nuance. But everyone sees the nuance. There are a few people who are vandalizing. You know, there are a few people who might be taking it too far. But overwhelmingly, suburban women and voters are on the side of Black Lives Matter and this movement.”

— NPR, July 2020

“Republicans “might not always have the best answers on, say, the environment, but the economy is where they run the tables,” Matthews said. Given that the public still gives Trump relatively high marks on economic policy, “why would you not embrace that, and run into that?”

— CNBC, July 2020

“Trump is so egregiously out of sync and overstepping, but Biden is also starving him of the oxygen he wants.”

— CNN, July 2020

For Republicans, identity politics backfire so a woman candidate would not appeal to conservatives by making the case that she is a woman.”

— US News, November 2019