Despite repeated requests, Nix did not submit responses to the News Collaborative of Central Florida questionnaire.
Campaign website: judgenix2026.com
Circuit Judge Mikaela Nix hopes voters will remember the five and a half years she’s spent on the bench when they vote. She’s running for re-election to hold her seat in Group 1 on the Ninth Circuit Court, which serves both Orange and Osceola counties.
Nix had made a run for the Florida House in District 47 in 2018, but lost in the Republican Primary before being elected to the Ninth Circuit Court in 2020. She presided over the Osceola County Criminal Court from 2021 to 2022 and moved to the Orange County Domestic Relations Court in 2023 where she’s been hearing family law and domestic violence cases ever since. Prior to joining the bench, Nix ran a private practice where she focused on fathers’ rights in divorce, custody and child support cases. Nix has also worked as an adjunct professor at Seminole State College and Valencia Community College and is a Florida Supreme Court Family Court Certified Mediator.
The Federalist Society member is now being challenged by fellow Republican and former chair of the Orange County Republican Party Charles C. Hart II and private practice attorney Temika Hampton-Johnson. The Aug. 18 election is nonpartisan. Circuit Court judges serve six-year terms and earn $200,836 annually.
“I believe that the six-year term is because we want to keep those experienced judges on the bench,” the Apopka mom of two said in a recent interview.
Nix’s candidacy has not been without controversy. An opposition website that accuses Nix of corruption, ineptitude and massive personal debt keeps popping up under new URLs almost as quickly as Nix and her legal team shut them down. Though Nix dismissed the site as “nothing more than a smear tactic,” VoxPopuli found twice as much debt in Nix’s financial disclosure forms as referenced on the website — about $1.2 million, including three mortgages and student loans. Nix disputes that her home is in foreclosure. But a case was opened in the Ninth Circuit Court; then it moved to the Tenth Circuit and the files sealed.
“I think that there should be a reason why a judge is removed, and I have not found any reason that I can see that would discredit me as a judge,” Nix said. “I believe that it is important to re-elect and keep those judges on the bench who are in the community, and I think that I am one of those.”
This Voters Guide was produced by the News Collaborative of Central Florida, a collective of independent local news outlets and aligned partners working toward a more informed and engaged Central Florida.