AP calls Florida Senate special election for Moody and Cabinet races for Uthmeier, Ingoglia and Simpson; state's counts remain unofficial

The Associated Press has called Florida's U.S. Senate special election for Sen. Ashley Moody and the three state Cabinet races for Attorney General James Uthmeier, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, AP results displays on Fox 13 Tampa Bay and WESH showed Wednesday.¹² All four are Republicans. SignalData does not call races.

The counts below are the state's unofficial election night results, as the Division of Elections' Florida Election Watch pages showed them when SignalData opened them at 4:01 p.m. Wednesday. Candidates are listed alphabetically by last name. Times in this story are Eastern.

U.S. Senate special election

• Neil J. Gillespie, no party affiliation: 94,538 votes, 1.14%
• Ashley Moody, Republican: 4,208,004 votes, 50.87%
• Angie Nixon, Democrat: 3,969,271 votes, 47.99%

Total on the page: 8,271,813.³ News 6 WKMG's live blog reported Moody's win at 8:35 p.m. Nov. 3.⁴

Florida law sends a U.S. Senate vacancy to the next general election and lets the governor appoint someone until then.⁵ Moody was appointed last year after Marco Rubio, now secretary of state, left the seat, and this election covers the rest of his term, CBS News reported.⁶ The Senate lists Moody in Class III, whose terms end Jan. 3, 2029.⁷

Attorney general

• Jose Javier Rodriguez, Democrat: 4,024,563 votes, 49.07%
• James Uthmeier, Republican: 4,177,901 votes, 50.93%

Total on the page: 8,202,464.⁸ News 6 reported Uthmeier's win at 10 p.m. Nov. 3.⁴ Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Uthmeier in February 2025, the attorney general's office says.⁹

Chief financial officer

• Blaise Ingoglia, Republican: 4,151,579 votes, 50.94%
• Annette Taddeo, Democrat: 3,997,932 votes, 49.06%

Total on the page: 8,149,511.¹⁰ News 6 reported Ingoglia's win at 10:12 p.m. Nov. 3.⁴ DeSantis appointed Ingoglia, who was sworn in July 21, 2025, the Department of Financial Services says,¹¹ for a term expiring Jan. 5, 2027, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.¹²

Commissioner of agriculture

• Kyle "KC" Gibson, write-in: 0 votes, 0%
• Joey Mendoza Atkins, Democrat: 3,984,621 votes, 48.92%
• Wilton Simpson, Republican: 4,160,577 votes, 51.08%

Total on the page: 8,145,198.¹³ News 6 reported AP's projection for Simpson at 9:30 p.m. Nov. 3.⁴ Simpson first won the office in 2022 and, of the three, alone had been elected to his post before this year, the News Service of Florida reported.¹⁴

The state constitution sets a four-year term for Cabinet members chosen at this election, beginning the first Tuesday after the first Monday of next January.¹⁵

What comes next

The Division's timeline sets unofficial returns for noon Nov. 7, official county returns for noon Nov. 16 and certification by the Elections Canvassing Commission by 8 a.m. Nov. 17.¹⁶

State law requires a machine recount when unofficial returns show a candidate defeated by one-half of a percent or less of the votes cast, and a manual recount of overvotes and undervotes at one-quarter of a percent or less on the second set of unofficial returns. Both sections list exceptions, including a written request from the defeated candidate.¹⁷¹⁸ At 4:01 p.m., the gap between the top two candidates ran from 1.87% of votes cast for attorney general to 2.89% for Senate, by SignalData's calculation.³⁸¹⁰¹³

What the records do not show

• The state's pages do not say how many ballots remain uncounted. AP's displays estimate 99% counted in each race, and AP's totals differ slightly from the state's.¹²
• AP's displays give call times, but SignalData could not confirm their time zone, so this story omits them. The News 6 times above are when its live blog posted each result, not when AP made a call, and only the Simpson post names AP.⁴¹²
• The 0 for Gibson does not establish that he received no write-in votes. Returns due Nov. 7 must include the canvass of write-in votes.¹⁷
• No result is certified, and these counts can change.