Matthews was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2018, defeating incumbent Republican Bill Crosby. This made her the first Black woman to represent this district.[3]
Matthews was a member of the Medical, Military, Public, and Municipal Affairs committee, and of the Operations and Management committee.[1]
On April 12, 2021, Matthews announced her candidacy in the 2022 election for South Carolina's Class 3 seat in the United States Senate.[5]
June 2022 phone recording
On June 26, 2022, audio of a prison phone call was released by the far-right activist group Project Veritas. On the recording, Matthews expresses a desire to accept money from drug dealers to fund her campaign and also calls for Democrats to run as "secret sleepers" in Republican primaries.[6] She also instructed the inmate to use the name of somebody in their family rather than their own name, without the knowledge of the family member, when making the donation.[7]
Matthews won the primary runoff two days later. In reference to the recording, Matthews said, “Nothing I said was untrue. And everything I said are also things that I’ve already talked about throughout my campaign. I don't run from anything.”[6] She described the phone call with the inmate as "tongue-in-cheek" and argued that she was not advocating for any illegal activities.[8] She apologized for her language in a private conversation.[9] Matthews won the Democratic primary in a June 28 runoff.[10]
September 2022 recording
On September 8, 2022, Project Veritas again obtained a recording of Matthews making racist[11] statements about White people, resulting in calls for her resignation by Republican South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and fellow Democrat South Carolina State House Representative Justin Bamberg.[12] In the recording, Representative Matthews states, "My district is slightly Republican, and it's heavily White. I'm no stranger to White people, I'm from a mostly White town. And let me tell you one thing. You oughta know who you're dealing with, like -- you gotta treat them like shit, like I mean that’s the only way they’ll respect you. I keep them right here, like under my thumbs. That's where I keep it. You have to, otherwise they get out of control, like kids."[13][14] In a statement, Matthews confirmed that her voice is heard in the recording and characterized the incident as an attack, referring to Project Veritas as a "satirical MAGA Powered news outlet".[15]
In the 2022 general election, Matthews ran in two races simultaneously: the US Senate and the South Carolina House of Representatives races.[16] She lost the Senate race to incumbent Tim Scott, and the South Carolina House of Representatives race to Republican challenger Jordan Pace.[17]
