Leading the way to better insights and the path to success. “A lot of voters thought, ‘It’s not going to happen here,’ ” even as a growing number of states across the country passed increasingly restrictive antiabortion laws, said Republican pollster Christine Matthews. “This is a bomb going off in front of everyone who now recognizes, yes it could happen here. In July, Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster, surveyed people in nine states where abortion is banned except to save the life of the pregnant woman, and found that few knew the specifics of their law, but when they were told, the majority said they supported adding exceptions. “If he doesn’t have non-college-educated white women in that equation—particularly in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania—the math does not work for him.” “They saw this sort of anti-male movement. They worried that it and the #MeToo movement had gone too far,” she said. “They worried about the men in their lives, and the men, of course, worried about themselves.” In the news “Right now the hazy veil of memory is benefiting Trump. People are looking back, and it's a little fuzzy, but it seems like, gosh, things weren't as expensive.” “The fact that you’ve got two women running in Ohio as Democrats. If they lose, the politics of being a Democrat in Ohio is going to have almost everything to do with it and much less the fact that it’s two women,” Matthews said. Trump tightens hold on GOP, crowding out even popular rivalsAfter Leak of Roe v. Wade Opinion, Parties Make Dueling Bets on Power of Abortion Issue “These voters are voting. They’re paying attention. They’re listening. They’re not liking what they’re hearing, and they are much, much more volatile than conventional wisdom would have,” said Christine Matthews, the president of Bellwether Research. “I don’t think answers from either party are loud or clear or definitive enough for these voters.” “He consistently loses the most educated counties in every state,” said GOP pollster Christine Matthews. “In Virginia, this was definitely true, but it was true in South Carolina, too. And everywhere. ... I don’t think he wins them back by talking about how much Black voters love his mug shot T-shirt or let Russia attack NATO allies who haven’t paid their dues.” “Even as states such as Texas have passed laws that would all but ban the procedure, strategists in both parties have been surprised at how little they are hearing about it in their surveys and focus groups — or as GOP pollster Christine Matthews said to me Tuesday, “why the dog hasn’t barked on this.” People in moderate and liberal states tend to shrug off those restrictive new laws as “something that couldn’t happen here.” “She is in that sweet spot, you know, where she's sort of the perfect age. She checks the motherhood box but is now able to run and her kids are safely launched,” Matthews said. “It’s not going to be what drives everyone to make a vote choice, but it will drive some people to make a vote choice.” More News Mentions
