Moms for Liberty foe announces Senate bid against Florida Republican Ashley Moody [View all]

Source: NBC News

Sept. 10, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT


Democrat Jennifer Jenkins has beaten high-profile political opponents in the past. During her 2020 run for a school board seat in a conservative-leaning southeast Florida county, Jenkins won by 10 percentage points over Republican Tina Descovich, who would go on to become a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, an influential national education group focused on parental choice.

The win, especially by a double-digit margin, was considered a significant upset at the time. Jenkins will try to once again play political spoiler during the 2026 midterms. On Wednesday, she is announcing her bid for the Senate against Sen. Ashley Moody, a Republican who was appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in January and quickly endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Republicans have built a more than 1 million-person voter registration advantage in Florida — once the country’s largest swing state — and are expected to have a heavy cash advantage over Democrats heading into the midterms, a dynamic Jenkins said she is prepared to go up against.

“I think being a nontraditional candidate who understands the struggles everyday people are going through will resonate across party lines,” Jenkins told NBC News. “I think Democrats have conceded certain [conservative] parts of the state. ... I think that is a really, obviously, a bad choice.”

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/moms-liberty-foe-jennifer-jenkins-senate-bid-ashley-moody-rcna230155