# Ashley Moody

Ashley Brooke Moody (born March 28, 1975) is an American politician, attorney, and former jurist serving since 2025 as the junior United States senator from Florida. A member of the Republican Party, she served from 2019 to 2025 as the 38th Florida attorney general, from 2007 to 2017 as a circuit court judge in Hillsborough County, and as an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida before entering electoral politics.
As Florida attorney general, Moody supported lawsuits to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, advocated against restoration of voting rights for former felons, and opposed the legalization of recreational marijuana. She supported then-President Donald Trump in Florida during the 2020 presidential election, and joined in the Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit, which sought to contest the results of the election.
In January 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Moody to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the resignation of Marco Rubio, who became United States secretary of state. On January 21, 2025, she was sworn in by Vice President JD Vance, becoming Florida's second female senator, after Paula Hawkins.

## Early life and education

Moody was born in Plant City, Florida, on March 28, 1975. She is the oldest of three children born to Carol and Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Moody graduated from Plant City High School in 1993. She received a bachelor's degree and master's degree in accounting from University of Florida. While attending the University of Florida, she served as president of Florida Blue Key. Moody earned a Master of Laws in international law from Stetson University College of Law, and her Juris Doctor from the University of Florida School of Law.

## Early career

Moody interned for Martha Barnett, the president of the American Bar Association, and later joined the law firm Holland & Knight, working in civil litigation.
In January 1998, Moody switched her party affiliation from Democratic to Republican. Upon his election, Florida governor Jeb Bush appointed her to be the student representative on the Board of Regents, a now-defunct body that ran the state's university system.
Moody was appointed an assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida. In 2006, she was elected to the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in Hillsborough County.

## Attorney General of Florida
### Elections

On April 28, 2017, Moody resigned from the court to run for Florida attorney general in the 2018 election. In the Republican primary, she defeated state representative Frank White. In the general election, Moody defeated Democratic nominee Sean Shaw, a state representative, with 52% of the vote to Shaw's 46%.
Moody was reelected in the 2022 election over Democratic nominee Aramis Ayala by a 21-point margin.

### Tenure
#### Health care

Moody kept Florida in a lawsuit that seeks to have the Affordable Care Act deemed unconstitutional.

#### Marijuana

Moody argued for the disqualification of a 2022 ballot measure to legalize recreational cannabis in Florida, contending that it was misleading because the summary (which could not be longer than 75 words) did not clarify that cannabis would remain illegal under federal law. The Supreme Court of Florida agreed in a 5–2 ruling, effectively killing the initiative, which had already received 556,049 signatures of 891,589 required to appear on the ballot. Two months later, the court granted Moody's request that a second ballot measure to legalize recreational cannabis be disqualified from the 2022 ballot, in another 5–2 ruling that deemed the measure "affirmatively misleading".
In June 2023, Moody argued for the disqualification of a 2024 ballot measure to legalize recreational cannabis in Florida, filing a 49-page legal brief that asserted once again that the summary failed to make clear that cannabis would remain illegal under federal law, among other arguments. The challenge sought to strike down the initiative, which had received 967,528 of a required 891,523 valid signatures to appear on the ballot. The Florida Supreme Court ruled 5–2 that the initiative would remain on the ballot.

#### Voting rights

Moody opposed the restoration of voting rights for former felons. After the Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative passed in 2018, she and Governor Ron DeSantis helped push a bill through the Florida Senate that would restore voting rights to eligible felons only once the felons had paid all their court fees. In 2020, after Michael Bloomberg raised $16 million to pay 32,000 felons' court fees, which would make them eligible to vote in the 2020 elections, Moody asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Bloomberg, claiming he potentially violated election laws.

#### 2020 presidential election

During the 2020 presidential election, Politico called Moody "one of Donald Trump's biggest surrogates" in Florida. After Joe Biden won the election and Trump refused to concede, Moody took a leading role in aiding Trump's attempts to contest the election.
On December 9, 2020, Moody and 15 other state attorneys general announced their support for a lawsuit by Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, asking the Supreme Court of the United States to invalidate the presidential election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which were all won by Biden. There was no evidence of large-scale fraud in the election, and the court decided 7-2 not to hear the Texas lawsuit.
Moody was on the board of directors for the Rule of Law Defense Fund. In January 2021, the organization encouraged the gathering at the Capitol building to call for a halt on the counting of the Electoral College ballots, which they contended were fraudulent. After the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, Moody removed any references to the Rule of Law Defense Fund from her online biography.

#### COVID-19 pandemic

In 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Moody sued the federal government and the CDC for instituting requirements that cruise ships require 95% of passengers to be fully vaccinated.

#### Abortion rights initiative

In January 2024, Moody petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to disqualify a ballot measure to expand abortion access, claiming its language could mislead voters. The measure remained on the ballot but failed to garner the necessary 60% of the vote to amend the Florida Constitution.

## U.S. Senate
### Appointment

On January 16, 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis announced his intention to appoint Moody to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio, who was nominated to serve as Secretary of State (and subsequently unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate) in the second Trump administration. She is Florida's second female senator, after Paula Hawkins.

### Senate tenure

Moody was sworn in on January 21, 2025, along with former Ohio lieutenant governor Jon Husted, by Vice President JD Vance. She was escorted by fellow Florida senator Rick Scott.

#### Committee assignments

* Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
** Subcommittee on Education and the American Family
** Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security
* Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
** Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
** Subcommittee on Border Management, Federal Workforce, and Regulatory Affairs
** Subcommittee on Disaster Management, District of Columbia, and Census
* Committee on the Judiciary
** Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights
** Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration
** Subcommittee on Intellectual Property
** Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law
* Joint Economic Committee
* Senate Special Committee on Aging

## Personal life

Moody is married to Justin Duralia, a Drug Enforcement Administration officer. They have two children.

## Electoral history

2006 Thirteenth Judicial Court of Florida election, Non-partisan primary :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Republican | Ashley Moody | 41,522 | 39.08% | N/A |
| | Democratic | Gary Dolgin | 33,675 | 31.70% | N/A |
| | Independent | Pat Courtney | 31,042 | 29.22% | N/A |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 7,847 | 7.38% | N/A |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 106,239 | | |
2006 Thirteenth Judicial Court of Florida election, General election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Republican | Ashley Moody | 142,610 | 60.31% | N/A |
| | Democratic | Gary Dolgin | 93,854 | 39.69% | N/A |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 48,756 | 20.62% | N/A |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 236,464 | | |
2018 Florida Attorney General election, Republican primary :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Republican | Ashley Moody | 882,028 | 56.80% | N/A |
| | Republican | Frank White | 670,823 | 43.20% | N/A |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 211,205 | 13.60% | N/A |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 1,552,851 | | |
2018 Florida Attorney General election, General election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Republican | Ashley Moody | 4,232,532 | 52.11% | −2.96% |
| | Democratic | Sean Shaw | 3,744,912 | 46.10% | +4.09% |
| | Independent | Jeffrey Marc Siskind | 145,296 | 1.79% | N/A |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 487,620 | 6.01% | −7.07% |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 8,122,740 | | |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |
2022 Florida Attorney General election, General election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Republican | Ashley Moody (incumbent) | 4,651,279 | 60.59% | +8.48% |
| | Democratic | Aramis Ayala | 3,025,943 | 39.41% | −6.69% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 7,677,222 | 100.0% | |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |