Ashley Moody Wins Florida Senate Special Election in Close Race Against Angie Nixon

Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody won Florida's U.S. Senate special election on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, defeating Democrat Angie Nixon in a race that stayed far closer than expected. Decision Desk HQ projected Moody the winner, and Bloomberg Government reported the projection. The Tallahassee Democrat's live election results also reported that Moody had defended her seat against Nixon, in an entry timed 8:20 p.m. ET on November 3, 2026.

The call came minutes after Florida's final polls closed at 8 p.m. ET. At the time of the projection, Moody took 49.8 percent of the vote against 49.1 percent for Nixon, with 87 percent of the vote tallied, according to data compiled by the Associated Press and reported by Bloomberg Government. A margin that small, at that stage of the count, made the special election one of the closest statewide races of the night in Florida. The result still gave Moody the seat in her own right, in the first statewide vote on whether she should keep it.

A seat filled by appointment, decided by voters

Moody, a former Florida attorney general, was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio when Rubio became Secretary of State. Because she reached the Senate by appointment, this special election was the first time Florida voters decided whether she keeps the seat. The winner completes the term Rubio won in 2022, which runs to a regular election for a full term in 2028. Moody's win means she will serve the rest of that term, and the next Florida Senate race for this seat will be the regular election in 2028.

In the Associated Press results feed, the Florida Senate race is marked Called for Moody, with 4,032,207 votes for Moody and 95.51 percent of precincts reporting. Those feed figures reflect the count as the feed stood when the race was marked called, and they sit alongside the closer shares reported at the moment of the Decision Desk HQ projection, when 87 percent of the vote had been tallied. Both records point to the same outcome: a narrow Moody win, called on election night, after the final polls in the state had closed.

What the result means

Nixon is a Democratic Florida state representative. Her campaign held Moody to a margin of less than one percentage point at the projection, in a state where Democrats have not won a Senate race since 2012, according to Bloomberg Government and the record of the Florida Senate special election. That long run without a Democratic Senate win in Florida continues with Moody's victory, even though the final margin was far tighter than the result at the projection suggested it might be in a state Republicans have carried in recent Senate races.

The special election also settles, for now, who holds the seat Rubio left. An appointed senator now holds it with a statewide win behind her, and Florida's Senate delegation stays in Republican hands through the rest of the term that ends with the 2028 regular election.