Preview only: Florida's own model is not built yet. The county groups, map, what-if scenarios and past-race numbers on this page are Texas's, used as stand-ins. The polls and results are Florida's.
The forecast
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Numbers as a table
Things to know
The race in two minutes
Read by Maren Holt, Pollitrack's anchor · Recorded October 25
Read the transcript
I'm Maren Holt, and this is your Pollitrack digest on the Senate race in Florida.
This is a special election for the seat Marco Rubio left to become Secretary of State, and whoever takes it serves until January 2029. On the ballot, in the order Florida lists them: Republican Ashley Moody, a former state attorney general appointed to the seat last year, and Democrat Angie Nixon, a state representative from Jacksonville. The vote is on November 3.
The polling average has Moody ahead by 7.1 points across ten recent polls. Florida polls have overstated Democrats in every statewide race since 2018, so Pollitrack's forecast moves that 3.5 points toward Moody. That leaves Moody ahead by 10.6, with a 98 percent chance of finishing first and Nixon at 2 percent.
That is a wide lead. Races at odds like these rarely go the other way, but rarely is not never.
Early voting is under way, and mail ballots must reach the county by 7 pm on Election Day. So far, about 2.3 million Floridians have voted by mail or in person. That is 97 percent of the 2022 midterm at the same point, and 64 percent of the 2024 presidential pace.
The early vote does not tell us who is ahead. It tells us how many have turned out so far.
On election night, Pollitrack reads five bellwether counties, each standing in for a part of the state: Hillsborough, home to Tampa, for the biggest group of cities; Miami-Dade for the Hispanic vote; Santa Rosa, east of Pensacola, for the suburbs and the north; St. Lucie for the Treasure Coast and the small towns; and Walton for the Space Coast, the exurbs and the Panhandle.
Polls close at 7 pm local time, an hour later by the Eastern clock in the western Panhandle. Most counties post their early and mail votes within minutes, so the first numbers are those votes only. Scroll down to explore each county, or switch to What-if mode and play out your own night. I'm Maren Holt. See you on election night.
The recording plays on the Pollitrack site. The transcript is above.
Early voting
How to read this: the line adds up early votes day by day, in person and by mail. The amber line is 2026; the gray lines are past years on the same day of early voting, so a 2026 line above them means more early votes than then. Refreshed every morning and afternoon from the Florida Division of Elections' early-vote counts.Numbers as a table
Numbers as a table
Cumulative early votes, in person and by mail, against the same day in 2022 and 2024.
In the news
How to read this: the headlines free news sources carry about this race, newest first, with who published each. The counts are how many stories named each candidate in the last seven days. Pollitrack reads the headlines; it does not judge them and they do not change the forecast.
The newest headlines about this race, refreshed twice a day.
This week: 33 stories name Moody, 58 name Nixon, 22 name both.
- Come together: Democrats David Jolly, Angie Nixon stump on FAMU campus as election draws near
- Can Angie Nixon turn out enough young voters to win a U.S. Senate seat?
- ‘Angie Will Be An Outstanding Senator’: Obama Endorses Angie Nixon For Florida Senate
- Trump casts his midterm ballot early in Florida
- Obama backs Angie Nixon as Trump, DeSantis endorse Ashley Moody
- Obama weighs in on Florida elections, endorsing David Jolly and Angie Nixon
Five county groups
How to read this: every county joins the group whose bellwether county it has moved most like since 2016. The color is the group's margin in the view you pick: where its bellwether lands if the polls are right, its 2024 President result, or, on election night, how far each county has shifted since 2024. Darker means a bigger lead: 15 points or more, 5 to 15, or under 5. Tap a group or a county to light up its group.
Every county joins the bellwether it has voted most like since 2016.
Pick a group to light up its counties.
500 possible election nights
How to read this: the forecast is replayed 500 times, each with a different random draw of its uncertainty. Each dot is five possible nights, stacked by the statewide margin in 1-point steps: blue dots are Nixon wins and red dots are Moody wins. The more dots on one side of the tie line, the likelier that candidate wins.
The forecast replayed 500 times, with every county group free to miss.
Wins per 100 nights · each dot = 5 nights
The five bellwethers
How to read this: each row is one county, on a scale from a big Moody lead (left) to a big Nixon lead (right). The amber mark is the tie line: if every part of Florida shifted as much as this county did, a result there would mean a statewide tie. A dot to the right of it is good news for Nixon, and to the left for Moody; the colored bar shows how far each county is from the tie line, and toward whom. The gray ticks are the 2024 and 2018 results. The dot is where the polling average points until results post, then the real result. Drag a dot, tap anywhere on a row, or use the arrow keys to try your own numbers; the dot clicks onto the marks when you get close.
Drag a dot, or pick a scenario, to see who wins Florida.
Fine-tune the assumptions
County guides
Why each county was picked and what to watch.
Biggest vote source
HillsboroughTie line: Nixon +10.0 · stands in for Tampa Bay, Orlando, Broward, Palm Beach and the Gulf Coast cities, 51% of the vote
- 2024 President
- Trump +3.1
- 2022 Governor
- DeSantis +9.2
- 2018 Senate
- Nelson +8.1
- Compared with Florida
- 7–10 points more Democratic in every race since 2016
Why this county
Hillsborough County (Tampa) leads the biggest group: 15 counties that cast 51.3% of the 2024 vote, which Trump won by 3.4. Besides Tampa they are Broward and Palm Beach on the Gold Coast, Orange (Orlando), Pinellas (St. Petersburg), the Gulf Coast counties from Manatee to Collier, Polk, Volusia, and Leon and Alachua, home of the two big state universities. Every point of swing here is worth half a point statewide. Hillsborough has tracked the group's swing most closely in the seven races the model was tested on; Orange (0.5 points off on average) and Manatee (0.7) come close, and Palm Beach and Volusia are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Nixon +10.0: a result above it favors Nixon, below it Moody. Nelson won Hillsborough by 8.1 in 2018 while losing the state by 0.1; DeSantis won it by 9.2 in 2022 and Trump by 3.1 in 2024. It has stayed 7 to 10 points to the left of Florida as a whole in every race since 2016. Orange's tie line is Nixon +26.7 and Palm Beach's Nixon +13.9.
When results come in
Florida's counties post their early and mail votes soon after 7 pm Eastern, then Election Day precincts. The page reads Hillsborough's count from the Division of Elections' results file; to watch Orange instead, pick it as the group's county. Read the first number with care: it is early and mail votes only.
Signals so far
Orange (Orlando), in the same group: . Florida overall: . Florida registers voters by party. By October 23, Hillsborough had 150,311 mail and early votes in: 64,020 from registered Democrats and 54,380 from registered Republicans, by the Division of Elections' count. For scale: Hillsborough cast 483,514 votes in the 2022 governor's race.
Hispanic vote test
Miami-DadeTie line: Nixon +1.7 · stands in for Miami-Dade, Osceola and Hendry, 12% of the vote
- 2024 President
- Trump +11.4
- 2022 Governor
- DeSantis +11.3
- 2018 Senate
- Nelson +21.1
- Compared with Florida
- From 21 points more Democratic in 2018 to 2 in 2024
Why this county
Miami-Dade, the state's largest county, leads a group of three with Hispanic majorities or near-majorities: Miami-Dade, Osceola (Kissimmee, south of Orlando) and Hendry. Together they cast 11.8% of the 2024 vote, which Trump won by 10.4. This group has moved the most of any in Florida: Clinton won Miami-Dade by 29.6 in 2016 and Trump won it by 11.4 in 2024. Miami-Dade casts most of the group's vote, so it is the bellwether; Osceola (0.6 points off on average) is the stand-in.
What to look for
The tie line here is Nixon +1.7: a result above it favors Nixon, below it Moody. Miami-Dade moved from Nelson +21.1 in 2018 to DeSantis +11.3 in 2022 and Trump +11.4 in 2024, so whether that shift holds in a midterm is the question this group answers. Osceola's tie line is Nixon +11.6; Trump won it by 1.5 in 2024.
When results come in
Miami-Dade usually posts its early and mail votes within minutes of 7 pm Eastern. The page reads its count as it posts and leans on it more as its Election Day precincts report.
Signals so far
Osceola: . By October 23, Miami-Dade had 215,556 mail and early votes in: 86,746 from registered Democrats, 73,887 from registered Republicans and 50,863 from voters with no party. Nearly a quarter of them have no party affiliation, so party counts say less here than elsewhere. For scale: Miami-Dade cast 711,851 votes in the 2022 governor's race.
Suburb test
Santa RosaTie line: Moody +37.8 · stands in for Jacksonville, Pensacola, the Orlando and Jacksonville suburbs and The Villages, 15% of the vote
- 2024 President
- Trump +50.9
- 2022 Governor
- DeSantis +59.4
- 2018 Senate
- Scott +49.5
- Compared with Florida
- 38–52 points more Republican in every race since 2016, least in 2024
Why this county
Santa Rosa County (Milton and Navarre, east of Pensacola) leads nine counties that cast 14.8% of the 2024 vote, which Trump won by 20.8: Duval (Jacksonville) and its suburbs in St. Johns, Clay and Nassau, Seminole north of Orlando, Escambia (Pensacola), Okaloosa and Sumter (The Villages). What they share is the direction they have moved: less Republican against the state since 2016. Santa Rosa has tracked the group's swing most closely; Seminole (0.2 points off on average), St. Johns and Clay come close and are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Moody +37.8: a wider Moody margin favors Moody, a narrower one Nixon. Santa Rosa is in the Central time zone, so its polls close at 8 pm Eastern, an hour after most of the state. Seminole, the group's swing county, has a tie line of Nixon +9.5: Nelson won it by 2.0 in 2018 and Trump by 3.6 in 2024. Duval's tie line is Nixon +11.6.
When results come in
Santa Rosa's first results come after 8 pm Eastern, Seminole's and Duval's after 7. The page reads its count as it posts; to watch Seminole instead, pick it as the group's county.
Signals so far
Seminole: . Duval (Jacksonville): . By October 23, Santa Rosa had 14,799 mail and early votes in: 9,207 from registered Republicans and 3,492 from registered Democrats. For scale: Santa Rosa cast 75,698 votes in the 2022 governor's race and Seminole 183,201.
Small-town test
St. LucieTie line: Nixon +4.0 · stands in for the Treasure Coast, the Nature Coast, the Keys and the rural interior, 7% of the vote
- 2024 President
- Trump +9.1
- 2022 Governor
- DeSantis +19.1
- 2018 Senate
- Nelson +3.5
- Compared with Florida
- Within 4 points of the state in six of nine races since 2016
Why this county
St. Lucie County (Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce) leads the most counties: 23 that cast 7.2% of the 2024 vote, which Trump won by 33.1. Besides St. Lucie and Martin on the Treasure Coast they are Hernando and Citrus on the Nature Coast, Monroe (the Keys), and small inland and Big Bend counties from Highlands and Okeechobee to Levy, Taylor and Jackson. St. Lucie itself is close to a statewide bellwether: it has voted within a few points of Florida in most races since 2016. Martin (0.7 points off on average) and Hernando (0.8) come close and are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Nixon +4.0: a result above it favors Nixon, below it Moody. Nelson won St. Lucie by 3.5 in 2018; DeSantis won it by 19.1 in 2022 and Trump by 9.1 in 2024. Martin's tie line is Moody +18.0 and Hernando's Moody +24.0.
When results come in
The page reads its count as it posts and leans on it more as its Election Day precincts report. St. Lucie cast 121,993 votes in the 2022 governor's race; most of the group's other counties are much smaller and often finish early.
Signals so far
Martin: . By October 23, St. Lucie had 45,361 mail and early votes in: 18,765 from registered Democrats and 17,438 from registered Republicans.
Exurb test
WaltonTie line: Moody +44.7 · stands in for the Space Coast, Pasco, Lake, Marion and the Panhandle, 15% of the vote
- 2024 President
- Trump +57.8
- 2022 Governor
- DeSantis +64.6
- 2018 Senate
- Scott +50.5
- Compared with Florida
- 45–55 points more Republican in every race since 2016
Why this county
Walton County (DeFuniak Springs and the beach towns of 30A) leads 17 counties that cast 15.0% of the 2024 vote, which Trump won by 31.1: Brevard (the Space Coast), Pasco north of Tampa, Lake and Marion (Ocala) in central Florida, Charlotte and Indian River, Bay (Panama City) and small north Florida counties. Every point of swing here is worth about 0.15 of a point statewide. Walton has tracked the group's swing most closely; Brevard (0.2 points off on average), Indian River, Suwannee and Lake come close and are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Moody +44.7: a wider Moody margin favors Moody, a narrower one Nixon. Walton is in the Central time zone, so its polls close at 8 pm Eastern. Brevard, the group's big county, has a tie line of Moody +7.7: Scott won it by 13.9 in 2018 and Trump by 20.8 in 2024.
When results come in
Walton is small (34,901 votes in the 2022 governor's race) and posts after 8 pm Eastern; Brevard (267,453) posts after 7. The page reads each county's count as it posts.
Signals so far
Brevard: . By October 23, Walton had 7,917 mail and early votes in: 5,420 from registered Republicans and 1,474 from registered Democrats.
Timeline
When results usually arrive, Eastern time.
Mail and early voting. Counties must offer early voting from October 24 to 31 and may run it from October 19 to November 1; mail ballots must reach the county supervisor by 7 pm on Election Day. By October 23, 2,327,587 Floridians had voted, 1,320,003 by mail and 1,007,584 early in person, by the Division of Elections' count: 930,884 registered Democrats, 918,715 registered Republicans and 477,988 others. The early-vote tracker below follows the counts every morning and afternoon, against the same day of 2022 and 2024.
Polls close in most of Florida. Anyone in line by 7 pm local time can still vote. Counties may count mail ballots before Election Day, so most post their early and mail votes within minutes of the close: the first numbers are those votes only. The western Panhandle, from Escambia to Bay, Jackson and Calhoun, is on Central time and still voting for another hour.
The Panhandle closes, Election Day precincts fill in. Election Day votes have leaned more Republican than mail votes in recent Florida elections, so a county's margin usually moves toward Moody as its precincts report. Most counties are close to complete by midnight. This page reads each county's count from the Division of Elections' results file every few minutes; judge the night by the bellwethers against their tie lines (Hillsborough's is Nixon +10.0), not by the running total.
Last ballots and unofficial results. Provisional ballots and mail ballots with a signature problem can be fixed until 5 pm on November 5; overseas ballots count if they arrive by November 13. County canvassing boards send unofficial results to the state by noon on Saturday, November 7. A margin of half a percent or less triggers an automatic machine recount, and a quarter of a percent or less a manual recount of overvotes and undervotes.
State certification. Counties file official results by noon on November 15, and the Elections Canvassing Commission certifies the winner on November 17. The 2018 Senate race, which Scott won by 10,033 votes after machine and manual recounts, is the last time Florida went through both. The page doesn't model a recount.
Times are Eastern time. Counties post early votes first, then Election Day results. The method in six steps, then its track record on past races.
- All 67 counties are grouped by how they have moved relative to the statewide margin across nine statewide races (2016–2024). Each group is tied to one bellwether county.
- When a bellwether reports, its change from its 2024 President margin (Harris vs. Trump) is applied to every county in its group, and each group is weighted by its share of the vote.
- Early-vote readings are moved toward the expected final count. That uses only the 2026 Election Day tilt (Florida doesn't publish past results split by vote type), scaled by how much is still uncounted. Counties not yet in borrow the average change of those that are, pulled slightly toward the polls.
- Uncertainty combines the minimum uncertainty, how much of each county is still uncounted, and which counties haven't reported. The win chance and the 500 simulated nights both come from that.
- Until results post, the forecast is the polling average minus an allowance for how Florida polls have leaned (3.5 points off Nixon unless you change it), with a 5-point spread, the typical size of a final Florida poll-average miss since 2018. Where early votes are coming from trims nothing off it by default: each point the early electorate leans more Democratic than at the same point in 2024, measured by county, counts for the weight you set under "Fine-tune the assumptions", and in 2022 and 2024, measured against the election two years earlier, that lean did not predict how the polls missed. The five counties only start to matter on election night.
- Scheduled jobs in the cloud pull a Wikipedia poll table and the Division of Elections' mail and early-vote counts every morning and afternoon and, on election night, the Division's county results file every few minutes, and write to this page's data store, which updates open copies of the page without a reload.
Track record: past races predicted from these five counties alone
| Race predicted | Baseline race | Actual | Model | Miss |
|---|
These misses flatter the model. The five counties were picked by searching for the set that best fits these same seven races. Tested on races it had not seen, the same search missed by about 0.7 points.
What's different in 2026
The model is built on 2016–2024. Here is what could make this race break from those patterns, and how the model handles each.
| Factor | What it could do | How the model handles it |
|---|---|---|
| A special election for the last two years of a term | Marco Rubio resigned in January 2025 to become Secretary of State, and Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Ashley Moody, then the state's attorney general, to the seat. The winner serves until January 2029; the seat is up again in 2028. Moody won the August 18 Republican primary with 79.6%. Nixon, a state representative from Jacksonville, won the Democratic primary with 56.1% over Alex Vindman. | Before results, the forecast is the polling average less Florida's allowance. The starting point for every county is the 2024 presidential race (Trump +13.1), so each county's swing measures how much better or worse Nixon runs than Harris did there. |
| A governor's race on the same ballot | DeSantis can't run again. Representative Byron Donalds is the Republican nominee for governor and former Representative David Jolly the Democratic one. In 2018 the Senate and governor's races were both decided by under half a point; in 2022 DeSantis won by 19.4 and Rubio by 16.4. | Voters who split their tickets show up in the Senate margins directly. In What-if mode, enter Senate margins, not governor's race margins. |
| A state that has moved a long way | Florida went from Trump +1.2 in 2016 and Scott +0.1 in 2018 to DeSantis +19.4 in 2022 and Trump +13.1 in 2024, with the biggest moves in Miami-Dade and Osceola. Republicans now outnumber Democrats among registered voters; in 2018 Democrats outnumbered them. | Pick a turnout pattern under "Fine-tune the assumptions" ("Like 2022" or "Like 2018"). The "2018 again" what-if replays each group's swing from Scott's 2018 Senate race, the last close statewide race. |
| Early and mail votes first, but no record of the split | Florida counties post their mail and early votes soon after polls close, then Election Day precincts. The Division of Elections' results files don't split the votes by how they were cast, so there is no county-by-county record of how the count moves through the night. | The page uses its default spread for the move from first results to the final count, and the "How much more Republican Election Day votes will be" setting starts at zero. On election night the page reads each county's count from the Division of Elections' results file and marks a county that has posted only its early and mail votes. |
| Early votes by party, every day | Florida registers voters by party, and the Division of Elections posts each county's mail and early votes by party every morning. By October 23, 930,884 registered Democrats and 918,715 registered Republicans had voted, out of 2,327,587. | The early-vote tracker shows each county's count and party mix against the same day of 2022 and 2024, from the Division's archived reports. It doesn't move the forecast: a registered Democrat or Republican doesn't always vote for the party's candidate, voters outside the two parties are about a fifth of those who have voted, and the mix shifts as more people vote by mail or early. |
| Polls and Florida's record | The page's average of 10 recent polls had Moody ahead by 7.1 on October 24; the polls in it range from Moody +2 to +11. | Florida's final poll averages, taken the way this page takes them, overstated the Democrat in all seven statewide races since 2018: by 2.0 and 3.3 points in the 2018 Senate and governor's races, 5.9 in the 2020 presidential race and 6.5 to 8.4 in the four races of 2022 and 2024. Florida's own average is 6.0 points toward the Democrat; the default of 3.5 points is that average pooled with the other states' midterm-year misses. The spread around the polling average is 5 points, and the allowance is adjustable under "Fine-tune the assumptions." |
| A third name on the ballot | Neil Gillespie is running with no party affiliation. | The forecast is the margin between Moody and Nixon as a share of all votes cast, so third-party votes need no separate adjustment. |
- County returns 2016–2024: the Florida Division of Elections' results archive (official results by county for every federal and state race, one file per general election). Every race adds up to the certified statewide count exactly.
- County boundaries: us-atlas (Census cartographic boundaries)
- Mail and early-vote turnout: the Division of Elections' statistics page, each county's mail and early votes by party, updated every morning; 2022 and 2024 on the same day from the Wayback Machine's copies of the same page.
- Polling average: Wikipedia, 2026 United States Senate special election in Florida (poll table)
- Election-night results: the Division of Elections' results file, each county's count as it reports (the U.S. Senate and U.S. House rows).
- In the news: headlines and links from Google News, GDELT and the state's own news outlets, read twice a day. Pollitrack never fetches or stores the articles themselves.