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Ashley Moody, candidate for attorney general, speaks at the Republican Sunshine Summit Friday, June 29, 2018, in Kissimmee, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Ashley Moody, Republican candidate for Florida AG, wasn’t a “lifelong Democrat”
Once a Democrat, always a Democrat?
That’s how a Republican candidate for Florida attorney general attacked his primary opponent in an ad weeks before the Aug. 28 primary.
Frank White, a member of the Florida House since 2016, is challenging Ashley Moody, who was a Florida circuit court judge for 10 years before she resigned to run for attorney general.
"Ashley Moody sued Donald Trump for fraud," said an ad from White, referencing when Moody was a plaintiff in a lawsuit concerning Trump’s involvement in the development of the unfinished Trump Tower Tampa.
"Now she wants to be our Republican attorney general. How could we ever trust her?"
Then the ad goes even further: "Ashley Moody was a lifelong Democrat."
That would be an interesting development in a Republican primary, if it were true. But it is not.
Moody was a registered Democrat for five years, but has been a registered Republican for the last 20.
"Lifelong" ≠ 1993 to 1998
Under law, Florida voter registrations are public records and can be released to any person upon request.
So we acquired Moody’s records from the supervisor of elections in Hillsborough County, where Moody currently lives, as well as elections supervisors in other counties where she had previously lived.
We found that Moody first registered to vote in 1993, when she was 18. At that time, she registered as a Democrat in Hillsborough County.
Moody later moved to Alachua County to attend the University of Florida. On Jan. 6, 1998, she updated her voter registration and switched her party affiliation to Republican.
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