{"id":403546,"date":"2026-09-18T13:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/403546\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T13:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T13:00:09","slug":"sunshine-state-earthquake-st-pete-polls-shows-ashley-moody-angie-nixon-neck-and-neck-in-heated-senate-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/403546\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunshine State Earthquake? St. Pete Polls shows Ashley Moody, Angie Nixon neck-and-neck in heated Senate race"},"content":{"rendered":"

New polling shows the U.S. Senate race as a dead heat between Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody and Democratic challenger Angie Nixon.<\/p>\n

The St. Pete Polls<\/a> survey, conducted for Florida Politics, shows<\/a> both candidates with about 45%, specifically with Moody at 45.2% and Nixon at 44.8%. That bucks conventional wisdom that Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, starts the General Election season at a severe disadvantage after her upset victory<\/a> in the Democratic Primary against a better-funded opponent.<\/p>\n

The 0.4-percentage point difference between the candidates falls well within the poll\u2019s 3.2% margin of error. Pollsters surveyed 913 likely voters from Sept. 15 through 17. The survey sample leaned heavily toward the GOP, with about 45% of those surveyed being registered Republicans, under 33% registered Democrats, and 22% without party affiliation or members of minor parties.<\/p>\n

Taking the poll at face value, about 3% of voters plan to support another candidate on the ballot rather than the Republican or Democratic nominee, while another 7% remain up for grabs.<\/p>\n

Nixon, who would be Florida\u2019s first Black Senator, wins about 74% of Black voters\u2019 support, as well as 51% of Hispanic voters\u2019 support and 59% of Asian voters\u2019 support. White voters break for Moody, 53%, over Nixon, 37%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But the big boost for Nixon comes from winning support from nearly half of independent voters, moving Moody from 50% to 37% among the key demographic. Meanwhile, Nixon retains 85% of Democrats\u2019 support, while Moody holds on to only 77% of Republicans.<\/p>\n

The Primary results already guarantee Florida will elect a woman to the Senate for the first time since Republican Paula Hawkins\u2019 1980 victory<\/a>. The poll shows women breaking nearly evenly, with just under 45% backing Nixon and almost as many backing Moody, who does win men 46% to 44%.<\/p>\n

Moody holds the seat now, but was appointed<\/a> to it by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year. Unlike Nixon, Moody has won two statewide elections as Florida Attorney General, in 2018 and 2022.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the results suggest Florida could once again be a purple state in the presidential election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New polling shows the U.S. Senate race as a dead heat between Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[63968,18523,3853,412,202,204,203,7382,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-403546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-2026-senate-race","tag-angie-nixon","tag-ashley-moody","tag-ron-desantis","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-pete-polls","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}