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Nixon and Donalds win Florida's top primaries

August 19, 2026

Angie Nixon won Florida's Democratic Senate primary and Byron Donalds the Republican race for governor, on a night when Trump's endorsees won some races and lost others.

Fox News reports that Tuesday's voting reached from the south of Florida up to Alaska, with two states going to the polls in between, and puts control of Congress on the line in those contests. NBC News reports Angie Nixon as the projected winner of the Democratic Senate primary in Florida, and says several of the state's biggest races now have their November lineups. Her opponent was retired Air Force Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the favorite going in, according to Fox News. On the Republican side, Fox News reports Sen. Ashley Moody, whom Trump had endorsed, prevailed in the special primary for the balance of Marco Rubio's term, which runs to 2028; she had come to the seat by appointment last year, once Rubio joined the Trump administration.

Trump's endorsements cut both ways. For governor, Fox News reports he preferred Rep. Byron Donalds to Lt. Gov. Jay Collins as the successor to Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Donalds finished ahead of a Republican field that also held Collins and the outsider James Fishback. Two more of his picks prevailed, Fox News reports: Rep. Randy Fine kept his Florida seat in the 6th District, and Rep. Harriet Hageman ran away with Wyoming's Senate primary. The other direction shows up as plainly. NBC News reports Rep. Cory Mills, a Trump pick, was beaten by Ryan Elijah, who used to work in television news. Fox News dates that endorsement to February and describes an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee covering possible violations of campaign finance rules, an alleged assault on a romantic partner, and gifts said to have been improperly solicited or received. Wyoming Republicans went their own way for governor as well, Fox News reports, picking state Sen. Eric Barlow ahead of Trump's candidate, Megan Degenfelder. In Florida's 25th District, Fox News reports Rep. Jared Moskowitz turned back Oliver Larkin, 64% to 36%.

Where the accounts separate is emphasis. The New York Times treats the Florida outcome as a victory for the left. The Hill presents the Senate result as an upset delivered by a candidate from the party's socialist wing. Politico reads the same evening as voters shrugging off their own party's establishment and Trump alike. Fox News leads with Trump's hold on Republican primaries and points to Texas, where his choice, Ken Paxton, prevailed against former Sen. John Cornyn, while also counting the races his picks dropped. That difference moves no fact in the record, only what each account puts first. The winners are settled. What those results yield in November is not, and Fox News notes that no Democrat has won statewide in Florida since 2006.

Still developing

The Florida matchup between Elijah Manley, who holds a Democratic Socialists of America endorsement, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz ends without a winner in the record. Alaska sits in the same place: 15 opponents lined up against Sen. Dan Sullivan, Mary Peltola among them, and no outcome follows.

How settled the reporting is

Reported 100% · Contested 0% · Developing 0%

Sources