Florida voters will choose among three candidates for the United States Senate on November 3: Republican incumbent Ashley Moody, Democrat Angie Nixon, and No Party Affiliation candidate Neil Gillespie. Florida’s official candidate list identifies all three as qualified for the general election. Moody was appointed to the Senate in January 2025 following Marco Rubio’s resignation, and under Florida law the election will fill the unexpired portion of the term. Florida began sending vote-by-mail ballots to domestic voters with requests on file on September 24, and statewide early in-person voting begins October 24, although some counties may begin earlier.
The race presents an unusually difficult set of tradeoffs for a centrist independent voter. Moody is considerably closer to our economic and foreign-policy views. Nixon would provide a more direct partisan check on the Trump administration but advocates a domestic economic program far to our left. Gillespie rejects the two-party system but has not developed a sufficiently comprehensive public policy program for us to evaluate him on the same basis, nor have we found an explanation of how he would caucus in the Senate if elected.
Ashley Moody
Ashley Moody brings substantial experience to the race. Before entering the Senate, she served as a federal prosecutor, circuit judge and Florida attorney general. Governor Ron DeSantis appointed her to the Senate in January 2025.
On several substantive issues, there is meaningful overlap with our views.
Moody generally favors private enterprise, reduced regulation and a more market-oriented approach to economic policy. On foreign policy, her vote for the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 is particularly welcome. The legislation increased economic pressure on Russia and countries helping finance its war against Ukraine, an objective consistent with our own support for Ukraine. Moody voted for final passage on August 7.
But senators have responsibilities that extend beyond agreement on policy.
Congress is a separate branch of government, not an adjunct of the president. That responsibility becomes particularly important when the president belongs to the senator’s own party.
Moody’s record gives us reason to question how independently she would exercise that responsibility. Her own Senate biography says that as senator she is focused on “supporting President Trump’s agenda”. Political agreement with a president is not itself objectionable. The relevant question is what happens when presidential preference conflicts with congressional responsibility.
Several votes are troubling in that regard.
Moody voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services in February 2025. Kennedy was confirmed 52–48, with Senator Mitch McConnell the only Republican voting against him. Moody also voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary; Collins, Murkowski and McConnell were the Republican no votes. She voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence; McConnell voted no. And she voted for Todd Blanche when Trump nominated him as attorney general in August 2026; Collins and Murkowski voted against that confirmation. She supported each of these controversial nominations even though other Republican senators opposed several of them.
She also voted against congressional efforts to terminate the national emergency President Trump used to impose global tariffs. In October 2025 the Senate voted 51–47 to terminate that emergency; Moody voted no.
More recently, the issue has become even more direct. Moody voted against allowing a July 30 Iran War Powers resolution to proceed. The measure sought to require the removal of American forces from hostilities against Iran that had not been authorized by Congress. Collins, Murkowski and Paul were among the Republicans voting to allow it to proceed; Moody voted no.
On September 24, she again voted against a War Powers resolution directing the president to remove American forces from hostilities with Iran. The resolution failed 49–50.
We do not expect Republican senators to oppose a Republican president simply to demonstrate independence. Nor does every disagreement over presidential authority have an obvious answer. But Congress’s constitutional powers matter most when exercising them is politically uncomfortable, and a number of Republican senators have done so.
Moody’s support for sanctions against Russia is an important substantive positive. Her repeated reluctance to assert congressional authority against a president of her own party, even when other Republican senators have done so, points in the opposite direction.
Angie Nixon
Angie Nixon presents almost the reverse combination.
Nixon is a Florida state representative, former labor organizer and small-business owner. Her candidacy places unusual emphasis on affordability, labor, health care and economic inequality.
As a Democrat, she would provide a partisan counterweight to the Trump administration. At a time when the concentration of executive authority concerns us, that consideration has real importance. Research on congressional oversight has found that committees tend to scrutinize the executive branch more aggressively under divided government.
But institutional balance is only one consideration.
We have also been unable to find a clear statement from Nixon on Trump’s use of unilateral tariff authority or on the economic consequences of his tariffs. Given our concern both about the tariffs themselves and about the transfer of congressional trade authority to the president, we would like to know her position. Our own trade policy favors limiting unilateral presidential tariffs and restoring greater congressional oversight.
Nixon’s domestic economic program is substantially different from the market-oriented approach we generally support.
Her campaign calls for Medicare for All, a national rent freeze and eviction moratorium, universal childcare, federally guaranteed paid leave and a universal jobs program with inflation-adjusted wages.
Her education program calls for tuition-free public college and trade school and cancellation of student debt. Her labor program would end state right-to-work laws and expand union protections.
Nixon also proposes a 5% annual wealth tax on net worth above $1 billion, equal taxation of capital gains and wages, a federal asset registry, substantially greater IRS enforcement and federal action against what she describes as corporate price gouging.
These are not isolated disagreements. Taken together, they reflect a fundamentally larger governmental role in allocating resources, setting prices, providing services and regulating labor markets than we support.
Immigration presents another substantial difference. Nixon supports a swift path to citizenship for Dreamers and undocumented residents, a moratorium on deportations while enforcement practices are reviewed, and abolition of ICE, with legitimate immigration-enforcement functions rebuilt under a new agency. CIVPAC favors a path to legal residency, not necessarily citizenship; border enforcement; expanded lawful immigration and guest-worker programs; asylum reform; and humane enforcement.
Foreign Policy
On foreign policy, Nixon calls for an end to the current war with Iran and emphasizes multilateral diplomacy, international institutions and the United Nations rather than unilateral military intervention. Her campaign says the United States should use multilateral diplomacy as the first tool for resolving international conflicts and supports restoration of U.S. funding for international agencies and humanitarian programs.
On Israel and the Palestinians, Nixon calls for safety, equality and democracy for both peoples, opposes U.S. support for West Bank settlements, supports humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and says U.S. military assistance should comply with the Leahy Law. Those positions overlap in important respects with our own criticism of the Netanyahu government and support for Palestinian political rights. Our differences are nevertheless substantial. Nixon has described Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide and, after winning the Democratic primary, said that she did not support sending either money or weapons to Israel “at this moment.” She had previously said that she would have voted to eliminate the annual $3.3 billion U.S. military-aid package to Israel.
We also have a more fundamental unanswered question. Rick Stark, chair of the Florida Democratic Jewish Caucus, told Jewish Insider that when Nixon met with the group she did not give a clear answer when asked whether Israel has a right to continue to exist as a Jewish state. That is a secondhand account rather than a transcript, so we would welcome a direct clarification from Nixon. CIVPAC supports a secure State of Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state; criticism of Netanyahu or Israeli settlement policy is entirely compatible with that position, but ending current U.S. military assistance to Israel and leaving the character of Israel’s continued existence unresolved go considerably further.
The larger question is whether Nixon’s emphasis on restraint would preserve the network of alliances, deterrence and sustained international engagement that we regard as important to American security. Her campaign materials provide considerably less guidance on Ukraine, NATO, Russia and China than we would like from a candidate for the United States Senate.
That uncertainty matters particularly because foreign policy is one of the Senate’s distinctive constitutional responsibilities.
Neil Gillespie
The November ballot also includes Neil J. Gillespie, running with No Party Affiliation.
Gillespie describes himself as “No Party Neil” and a “working class capitalist”. He invokes George Washington’s warning about political parties and presents his candidacy as an alternative to partisan politics.
That argument initially warrants attention from an organization devoted to independent voters.
The difficulty is that Gillespie has published comparatively little resembling a comprehensive Senate policy platform. Much of his campaign material concerns his personal experience with the legal system, court procedures and what he describes as “lawfare.” We have found much less developed material on fiscal policy, Social Security and Medicare, health care, Ukraine, NATO, China, abortion, climate policy and most of the other questions on which we ordinarily evaluate Senate candidates.
Independent candidacy by itself is neither a qualification nor a disqualification. But independence from the two major parties cannot substitute for a sufficiently developed record from which voters can judge how a candidate would exercise the considerable powers of a United States senator.
Where the Evaluation Stands
The three candidates therefore present very different problems.
Moody is substantially closer to a market-oriented approach to domestic policy and has taken a position we welcome on sanctions against Russia. At the same time, her record on presidential nominations, tariff emergency powers and particularly congressional war powers provides substantial evidence about how she has approached institutional independence while serving under a president of her own party.
Nixon would create a very different institutional relationship with the White House and has clearly expressed opposition to unilateral presidential war-making. We have not, however, found a similarly clear position on the president’s unilateral exercise of tariff authority. Her domestic agenda encompasses Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee, national rent controls, tuition-free public college, student-debt cancellation, abolition of right-to-work laws, a wealth tax and abolition of ICE. We suspect that few to none of these domestic proposals are likely to appeal to a centrist independent voter. Her foreign-policy positions also raise significant questions. She favors ending current U.S. military assistance to Israel, has not clearly addressed whether Israel should continue to exist as a Jewish state, and has provided too little guidance on Ukraine, NATO, Russia and China.
Gillespie offers an explicitly independent candidacy but has not yet provided enough of a policy record to permit a comparable evaluation.
Those tradeoffs—not simply party labels—are the central issue raised by the Florida Senate race.
There are circumstances in which we will endorse a candidate with whom we have substantial policy disagreements because institutional considerations are sufficiently compelling. There are also circumstances in which we will endorse a member of the president’s party because that candidate has demonstrated the independence necessary to serve as an effective constitutional check. Those considerations are part of our broader candidate evaluation standards.
At present, neither condition is satisfied in Florida.
Moody is considerably closer to us on many policy questions but has not demonstrated sufficient independence from the Trump administration. Nixon would provide a stronger partisan check on that administration, but asks us to accept a domestic agenda far to our left along with significant foreign-policy disagreements and unanswered questions. Gillespie has not provided enough evidence of a developed policy program or preparation for national office to recommend him as a serious alternative.
CIVPAC therefore makes no endorsement in Florida’s 2026 election for the United States Senate.
The Democratic primary also illustrates that this choice was not inevitable. Nixon defeated Alexander Vindman, who offered a substantially different combination of positions on congressional independence, immigration and foreign policy. The Centrist Independent Voter would have viewed his candidacy much more favorably.
The decision not to endorse should not be interpreted as a recommendation that Floridians stay home.
There are other federal, state and local contests on the ballot, and voters should participate in them. If a voter has reached an independent judgment about the Senate race, that voter should of course cast a ballot there as well. We hope that the information we have provided above will help in that difficult decision.
A CIVPAC non-endorsement means only what it says: after examining the candidates, we are not prepared to tell voters that any of them has earned our support.
We will continue to follow the race and may reconsider this conclusion if debates or subsequent developments provide meaningful new evidence about the candidates.