DeSantis taps Ashley Moody to replace Marco Rubio in U.S. Senate

DeSantis picks Ashley Moody to replace Rubio in Senate

FOX 13's Chief Political Investigator Craig Patrick reports on Governor Ron DeSantis appointing state Attorney General Ashley Moody to replace Marcio Rubio in the U.S. Senate.

ORLANDO, Fla. - On Thursday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that he had selected Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody to serve as the next U.S. senator.

DeSantis said he thought long and hard and got great candidates throughout the state, but Moody rose to the top.

Who is Ashley Moody?

What we know:

Ashley Moody has been Florida’s attorney general since 2019.

She is a fifth-generation native of Plant City and a three-time graduate of the University of Florida.

Moody was also named queen of the Strawberry Festival in her youth and is married with two sons.

Moody was a commercial litigator and a federal prosecutor as assistant U.S. attorney for the middle district of Florida.

In 2007, she became Florida’s youngest circuit court judge at the age of 31, where she championed initiatives for at-risk children and expanded access to legal representation for underprivileged Floridians.

Elected as the state’s top law enforcement officer in 2018, Moody campaigned on a pledge to voters that she’d be a prosecutor, not a politician. Along with DeSantis, Moody boosted her political profile during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling on the federal government to "hold China responsible" for the outbreak.

In elevating her to the post, DeSantis praised Moody as a key player in his political battles, a law and order prosecutor who’s prepared to help President-elect Donald Trump "secure and shut the border," rein in inflation, and overhaul what he described as a federal bureaucracy "run amok."

As the state’s attorney general, Moody has been instrumental in defending DeSantis’ conservative agenda in court and has joined other Republican-led states in challenging the Biden administration’s policies, suing over changes to immigration enforcement, student loan forgiveness and vaccine mandates for federal contractors.

READ: Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody unveils new human trafficking initiatives

"I’m happy to say we’ve had an Attorney General that is somebody that has acted time and time again to support the values that we all share," DeSantis said.

Moody fought unsuccessfully to keep an abortion rights measure off the ballot in Florida in 2024, saying proponents were waging "a war" to protect the procedure. The measure did go before voters but ultimately failed to get the 60% approval needed to pass.

She was also among the state attorneys general to sign on to the lawsuit backed by Trump aimed at overturning Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020.

Moody could play a key role in the upcoming hearings for Trump’s Cabinet nominees, some of whom are expected to face a tough path to confirmation.

What they're saying:

"I will not let you down. I will not let the citizens of Florida down, and I will not let my country down," Moody said during a press conference on Thursday morning.

She said she was honored by the appointment and promised to bring the same passion and tenacity to the senate as she did to the office of attorney general.

"We’ve had an attorney general who has acted time and time again to support the values that we all share – that’s illegal immigration, the opioid and fentanyl crisis, human trafficking. She has stood strong time and time again," DeSantis stated.

Why is the Senate seat open?

The backstory:

Senate-appointee Ashley Moody was selected to replace the seat left vacant by Marco Rubio who was tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be his Secretary of State.

Under the U.S. Constitution and state law, the governor has the power to fill vacancies in the U.S. Senate, while voters decide who should fill vacancies in the U.S. House.

Should Rubio be confirmed, his replacement would serve for two years until the next regularly scheduled election in 2026, at which point the seat would be up for election again.

Republicans narrowly hold a majority in the Senate, 53-47, but they are down to 52 after Vice President-elect JD Vance resigned his seat last week ahead of taking office. That means Trump’s nominees need support from almost every GOP senator for majority confirmation over objections from Democrats.

The Source: This story was written with information from a press conference given by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Ashley Moody as well as a report from the Associated Press.

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