Senator Ashley Moody. R-Fla., defeated Democrat Angie Nixon in the special election for Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s former Senate seat, NBC News projects.
Moody was considered the overwhelming favorite heading into the general election against Nixon, a candidate aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America who won a surprise victory in the Democratic primary but was at a money disadvantage throughout the general election.
Although Moody was victorious, Nixon’s surprise victory on primary night elevated the race nationally as his emergence piqued the interest of progressives across the country. Democrats saw his candidacy as an opportunity to gain a foothold in a state where their party has not won a Senate race since 2012.
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Ultimately, Moody continued GOP dominance after largely running a cautious, traditional Florida Republican campaign. She will serve the last two years of the term won by Rubio in 2022; the seat will be up for election again in 2028 for a full term.
Moody has leveraged her significant fundraising advantage to flood the airwaves in a state of 23 million, where being able to afford high advertising rates is seen as the key to victory.
Moody was criticized for refusing to debate and holding fewer public events than Nixon, who covered the state with in-person events and became a regular on mainstream state media and the center-left podcast circuit.
“Ashley Moody should take a leaf out of Angie Nixon’s book,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said at a news conference last month in Tallahassee. “Stop hiding behind attacks. Show up and talk to the people you work for, because Ashley Moody is asking Floridians for their vote, and if she doesn’t answer their questions, they will give her their answer in November.”
The event included a sign reading “Where is Ashley Moody?”
Those successes, however, weren’t enough to bring down Moody, who was also criticized for her ties to the Hope Florida scandal, which involved $10 million for a Medicaid settlement paid to a charity linked to Florida’s first lady, Casey DeSantis. A political committee ultimately used that money to oppose a 2024 ballot measure that would have legalized recreational marijuana in the state.
Moody, who was then the state’s attorney general, had to sign the agreement. She has denied any wrongdoing and no charges were filed after a state attorney convened a grand jury to review the case.
Moody’s main line of attack focused on Nixon being too liberal for a state that now has 1.5 million more registered Republicans than Democrats, a recent massive reversal after Democrats held an advantage for decades.
Much of Moody’s messaging and campaign advertising focused on policies proposed more broadly by the Democratic Socialists of America, even though Nixon publicly distanced himself from them.
“Angie Nixon is actually a socialist,” a narrator says in one of the spots focusing on Democratic Socialists of America issues, such as “abolishing the police,” which Nixon said she didn’t want to do.
Moody had won two statewide elections for attorney general, but this was his first time on the Senate ballot. Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed her to the seat after Rubio was tapped to serve in Trump’s Cabinet.
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