Ashley Moody
Who is Ashley Moody?
How did Ashley Moody become a U.S. senator?
What was Ashley Moody’s career as a judge?
What are some of Ashley Moody’s political positions?
Ashley Moody is a fifth-generation Floridian who learned about her Florida roots from an early age. Her family members have been prominent citizens in the small central Florida city of Plant City since the late 19th century. She embraced the Moody family legacy by becoming a federal prosecutor, a judge, the state’s attorney general, and, in 2025, a United States senator.
Early years
- Full name: Ashley Brooke Moody
- Born: March 28, 1975; Plant City, Florida, U.S.
- Education: University of Florida (bachelor’s degree in accounting, 1996); University of Florida (master’s degree in accounting, 2000); University of Florida College of Law (J.D., 2000); Stetson University College of Law (Master of Laws degree in international relations, 2010)
- Current role: U.S. senator from Florida
- Political affiliation: Republican Party
- Family: Married to former Drug Enforcement Administration agent and Plant City deputy police chief Justin Duralia; they have two sons.
- Quotation: From a 2018 Tampa Bay Times interview: “I have always focused on using the experience that I’ve had and looking to see how I can use that and be productive and helpful in this world. We only have one life.”
Ashley Moody was born in 1975, the oldest of Carol and James Moody, Jr.’s three children. Her mother was a lawyer, and her father was a judge. Childhood friends recall Ashley Moody as driven from a young age. In high school she was captain of the cheer squad and in the National Honor Society. She joined Future Farmers of America, not because she had aspirations of becoming a farmer: “It was Plant City,” Moody told the Tampa Bay Times. “Everybody in student leadership wanted to be in the FFA.” As a high-school senior, Moody, despite her family’s conservative roots, registered to vote as a Democrat; she changed her registration to Republican five years later.
Her next stop was the University of Florida, where she received three degrees in the span of four years. Even as she followed in the family tradition of law, she seemed to have an eye on a political career. She served as president of the Florida Blue Key, an honorary leadership organization at the school that had claimed among its ranks former Florida senators and governors, including Lawton Chiles, Bob Graham, and Bill Nelson.
Judge and attorney general
After receiving a law degree, Moody interned with the president of the American Bar Association before joining the prestigious firm Holland & Knight as an associate. But she left the partner-track position after three years to become a federal prosecutor; two years later she was running for her first judgeship. Elected to the Circuit Court in Hillsborough county in 2006, Moody was the state’s youngest judge at age 31. She served as judge until 2017, when she resigned to run for attorney general. She won the office in 2018, taking over from Pam Bondi, who was term-limited in the position.
In her campaign for attorney general, Moody said she did not see the role as a political one, saying she didn’t want to “play politics with this office.” And yet, in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden, she joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other Republican attorneys general in failed bids to get the results of the election overturned. In her time as attorney general, Moody espoused conservative positions including opposing the restoration of voting rights to most people with felony convictions, opposing COVID-19-era mask mandates, and being “100 percent pro-life” on reproductive rights issues. But as attorney general, she fought a suit by the National Rifle Association to reverse a Florida law, enacted after the Parkland high school shooting, to raise the minimum age for buying a rifle from 18 to 21. She was reelected in 2022.
Senator Moody
When Donald Trump won his second term in the 2024 presidential election, he named sitting Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state. Ahead of Rubio’s confirmation, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Moody to the Senate. She took office on January 21, 2025.
During her time in the Senate, she was a reliable Republican vote, expressing support for Trump’s policies on the border and the Iran war and notably grilling Dr. >Anthony Fauci during a 2026 hearing. She drew praise for being a low-key and effective legislator who focuses on constituent services. In the 2026 midterm elections she ran against >democratic socialist Angie Nixon in a special election to serve out the remainder of Rubio’s term, which ends in 2029. Moody had the endorsements of DeSantis and Trump, who campaigned for her a number of times in Florida. In a year marked by a number of Democratic wins in traditionally Republican states, Moody managed to hold off Nixon’s challenge, winning by three points.
The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.
SUBSCRIBE
