On August 18, Ashley Moody won her primary and walked onstage to tell Floridians who she'd be running against in November.
Here is what she said:
"My opponent will be a self-proclaimed socialist that proudly signed up and joined the Democratic Socialists of America. That will be my opponent. … You're going to have one side that I'm going to be up against that wants to, and the platform says, 'Defund the police, don't fund our military, open up the border, noncitizen voting.'"
Four charges, in one breath, in the first sentence most Floridians will ever hear about her opponent.
PolitiFact went and checked all four. Reporters Maria Briceño and Samantha Putterman published their findings three days later, and the short version is that Moody read positions off an organization's platform and attributed them to a person who has publicly said the opposite.
What Nixon actually says
"Defund the police." Angie Nixon has said publicly that she does not support defunding the police. Her words: "I don't support defunding the police. I do support comprehensive criminal justice reform." PolitiFact found no evidence she has ever supported it.
"Don't fund our military." PolitiFact found no evidence Nixon has advocated for defunding the military. What she has criticized is spending on the Iran war while veterans go homeless — which is an argument about priorities, not about whether the military gets funded.
"Open up the border." Nixon's campaign told PolitiFact she supports "secure borders" alongside "clear and compassionate pathways for citizenship." In her own words: "border patrol should make sure they are securing the border while there are clear pathways to citizenship."
"Noncitizen voting." Nixon's campaign said she "supports the right of every eligible American citizen to vote." It isn't on her website. It isn't in her record.
Nixon is a member of the DSA. That part is true, and Moody is entitled to say it. What she isn't entitled to do is read that group's platform aloud and present it as her opponent's positions when the opponent has said, on the record, that she disagrees with them.
Moody knows exactly how this works
This is the part worth sitting with. Moody is not a first-time candidate winging it at a podium. She was Florida's attorney general — a job whose entire purpose is weighing evidence before making an accusation.
She has spent her political career on precisely the issue she just got caught mischaracterizing. We've written before about how Moody asked the FBI to investigate people who helped Floridians pay off their fines so they could vote, and how voter ID has become the thing she attaches to nearly every bill she touches. "Noncitizen voting" is not a phrase she reached for by accident. It's her signature issue, and she used it on a claim that has nothing behind it.
There's a reason attacks like that work. Noncitizen voting is already a deportable felony, and where states have actually gone looking for it, they've found almost nothing — a 10-year Minnesota review turned up three cases out of 13.3 million votes. But an accusation doesn't have to be true to do its job. It just has to be the first thing voters hear.
The pattern of what she won't answer
Moody's campaign is happy to make claims about her opponent. It has been considerably less forthcoming about claims involving her own record.
She has still not explained her role in the Hope Florida affair, in which $10 million meant for poor kids' Medicaid ended up funding a political campaign — money she signed off on and won't discuss. And Hope Florida's books have since moved into the same Alabama building as the super PAC backing her.
That's the trade Florida is being offered: four unsupported accusations about someone else, and silence about her own.
Florida votes November 3.
Source
How aligned is Angie Nixon with democratic socialists? Moody's Florida Senate race attack misleads — Maria Briceño and Samantha Putterman, PolitiFact, August 21, 2026.
