Republican Ashley Moody wins Florida's special US Senate election

Republican Ashley Moody has won Florida's special election for the US Senate, defeating democratic socialist challenger Angie Nixon and keeping her seat in the upper chamber of Congress. The result matters as a gauge of whether Florida remains reliably Republican, or whether Democrats, who have not won a statewide race in a decade, are regaining ground in a former key battleground.

Moody entered the Senate in January 2025, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis appointed her to the seat vacated after Marco Rubio became US secretary of state. This was her first election, and she will serve the remainder of the term until the 2028 election.

The run-up

Polls before Tuesday's vote gave Moody a clear but narrow lead. Nixon tried to close the gap with backing from prominent progressive Democrats: Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied with her last month in central Florida. The area has many immigrants, and the Trump administration's harsh detention and deportation policies have proved unpopular there.

The contest was also watched as a test for Republicans, who have built a 1.5 million-voter advantage in registrations in the state. Democrats have been shut out of statewide races for ten years.

Campaign themes

Moody focused on branding Nixon a "socialist". She pointed to Nixon's alignment with the Democratic Socialists of America as evidence that she wanted to defund the police and the military, abolish prisons, and support unchecked immigration and voting by noncitizens. Moody praised Trump's immigration policies but, aware of the president's strong disapproval ratings over the Iran war and high gas prices, largely avoided praising him personally.

Nixon campaigned on affordability and corruption in politics. She often cited Moody's role as Florida's attorney general in the so-called Hope Florida scandal, in which DeSantis's administration diverted a $10m Medicaid payout to political committees. In an interview, Nixon said: "I don't want to abolish prisons, because I want Ashley Moody in one of them." The remark became one of the most viral moments of her campaign.