Florida s GOP Senator Is Barely Campaigning—and Still Leading

Scrolling through X last week, I came across information for a “Get Out The Vote” rally with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and US Sen. Ashley Moody, who is running for reelection next week. The event would be located in Tampa Bay, where I live, and was scheduled for this Monday. Notably, the press was allowed “by invite only.”

Moody’s campaign never responded to my multiple messages seeking an invitation to the rally. Other reporters noted the curious press disclosure. “The Moody campaign has often this cycle sent press releases to reporters after they do events,” wrote Florida Phoenix reporter Mitch Perry on X, “today they’re choosing who they want to cover her rally in St. Pete tonight.” Her campaign later posted images from the event on social media, showing Moody, Florida’s flag behind her, speaking as a crowded room cheered for her. 

The reticence around the rally is just one example of how Moody has maintained a deliberately low profile in recent months on the campaign trail. She declined to debate her opponent, Florida state representative and Democratic socialist Angie Nixon, explaining that she would not “give a stage or any attention” to Nixon’s socialist platform. She has largely avoided the press, literally walking away when reporters in Washington, DC, and in Florida approached her. When a reporter asked her about Flock cameras at a recent event in Indian Rocks Beach, Fla., Creative Loafing reported, “her security detail physically blocked this reporter from following her as she left.” And yet, some polls show Moody winning by a few points. “When you have a socialist coming to try and take over your state and be at the top of the ticket, and walk on the United States Senate floor,” she told FOX News, “we won’t let it happen. We’re working hard, running to the finish line.”

Moody’s campaign also appears to choose speaking engagements where she is at low risk of facing an unscripted situation, such as giving remarks at the Trump rally in Fort Myers last week and speaking at smaller venues only attended by her supporters. “During an appearance at the state GOP’s annual meeting in January, Moody addressed rank-and-file Republicans from the stage,” Politico reported in August. “But unlike several other elected GOP officials who attended, she didn’t mingle with the crowd after her brief speech, instead leaving from a side entrance.” Politico also described a similar hasty exit in June, when Moody and incumbent Florida Sen. Rick Scott appeared together at a press conference protesting a Kanye “Ye” West concert. “But she left before Scott and former Gov. Charlie Crist took questions from reporters.”

Moody’s caution increased in September, when a leaked grand jury report that found Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration diverted $10 million meant to fund health care for poor children to “multiple organizations before eventually landing in the bank accounts of two political action committees and the Republican Party of Florida,” CBS News reported. As the state Attorney General at the time, Moody’s office was involved in the transfer of funds, the report states. In an X post, Moody said her office “had no knowledge of how funds would be spent.”

Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told me this week, that Moody can afford to take a more guarded approach on the campaign trail because she has several advantages over Nixon. First of all, there are the sheer numbers of registered voters. Since 2020, Republicans have built a comfortable advantage of 1.5 million voters over registered Democrats. Then there is the money; according to the most recent campaign finance disclosures, Moody has raised more than $20 million, compared to Nixon’s $8.5 million. Plus she’s been endorsed by DeSantis, whose popularity among Florida Republicans is still high. DeSantis appointed her to the Senate in 2025 after Marco Rubio became the US Secretary of State. Moody was Florida’s Attorney General between 2019 and last year. Originally from Plant City, Fla., the fifth-generation Floridian is also a former prosecutor and circuit court judge. “If Republican turnout is very solid despite Trump’s declining approval, and she’s able to control her message and just focus on a handful of things like affordability and attacking Nixon,” Jewett said, “she ought to be able to win.”

Meanwhile, Nixon’s campaign is strikingly different. The union organizer and Democratic state representative from Jacksonville has held dozens of large rallies across the state and is continuously speaking to the press, including our own Al Letson. She’s been endorsed by Democratic royalty like Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s also called Moody out for her evasion on the campaign trail, nicknaming her Absent Ashley: 

This level of accessibility can also put candidates at the risk of a misstep. In a CBS interview last weekend, a reporter asked Nixon if Cuba was living under a dictatorship. Nixon’s response: “That is what people have told me. I have never been to Cuba, and so I will have to take their word for it.” Her answer prompted backlash from Democrats and Republicans alike, including Moody, who posted on X: “Socialist Angie can’t answer if Cuba is a dictatorship? I guess now we know why she voted against the Florida law to require schools to teach the dangers of communism.”

But even if Nixon does not win on Tuesday, she has provided Democrats with a blueprint on how to efficiently campaign in Florida, and some evidence of this is in her ability to raise money. She brought in more than Moody in the latest quarter. “No matter what, the Democratic party is going to have to look at her approach to politics if they want to continue to better their record in Florida,” said Susan MacManus, a political analyst with decades of experience in the state. “She’s just really tapped into people who are tired of waiting for change to happen.”