Matthews’ wanted answers to two simple questions: How many women were wearing weighted vests? And what were their politics? So she commissioned a poll of 1,000 women across the U.S., the results of which she shared exclusively with POLITICO.

Matthews found that about one in six women wear this year’s hottest wellness accessory. But more importantly, the weighted vest women broke for President Donald Trump by three points in 2024.

Going into 2026, though, this group backs Republicans and Democrats equally at 47 percent in a generic congressional ballot. Among all women surveyed, 48 percent would vote for Democrats compared to 35 percent for Republicans.

“The people who swing elections, it always sort of comes down — in particular in midterms — to suburban women,” Matthews said in an interview with POLITICO. “This, to me, is just a particularly interesting cohort that is a subset of that group that could swing these elections because they’re so engaged. They look like they’re definite midterm voters.”

These voters are “under age 45, have kids at home, and live in urban/suburban neighborhoods, [are] well-educated, higher-income and highly engaged with politics,” according to Matthews’ poll deck.

“While much more likely to ‘do their own research’ on health matters, they generally trust mainstream medicine and media,” according to the poll deck. “They aren’t vaccine skeptics or seed oil opponents. They are likely to be listening to a podcast while walking with a weighted vest. They are politically split.”