Alex Vindman: From impeachment of Donald Trump to Florida Senate race

He may face State Rep. Angie Nixon in a primary

If at first you don’t succeed, try again — or run for Senate.

Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the former National Security Council officer who helped launch Donald Trump’s first impeachment, announced Tuesday that he is running for U.S. Senate in Florida against Ashley Moody, who was appointed when Marco Rubio was tapped as Secretary of State.

Yes, that Alex Vindman.

The one from the “perfect call.” The one Trump fired. The one whose twin brother now sits in Congress.

The one who just dropped into Florida politics like a Marvel character in comeback mode.

In his two-minute announcement video, Vindman doesn’t ease in. He barrels straight through the front door, calling Trump a “wannabe tyrant,” federal immigration agents “thug militias,” and accusing the president of unleashing a “reign of terror and retribution.” The video even features footage of the recent ICE murders in Minnesota — because if you’re going to run for Senate in Florida, you might as well open with a national crisis montage.

“Today our country is in chaos,” Vindman says. “Thug militias attacking citizens. Tariffs pushing prices sky high. Healthcare premiums through the roof.”

Then he turns the focus on the Sunshine State.

“And Florida homeowners are being absolutely screwed because Ashley Moody caved to the big insurance companies. They put Moody in the Senate to be a yes vote for Trump and the billionaires. She’s not Florida’s senator. She’s theirs.”

Vindman — who served 21 years in the Army, was wounded in Iraq, got a Purple Heart and then went on to work for the government under both Democrat and Republican presidents — frames the race as “the patriot versus the politician” and indicated that Moody may have abused her power in the short time she’s been there.

“Over a million dollars in Moody’s corporate stock was traded last year while she had access to insider information only Congress gets. That should be outlawed,” Vindman says in the video. “They gutted disaster assistance for people trying to rebuild their lives but she’s okay with $40 billion bail-outs for Argentina? Where’s the bail out for Florida’s families?”

Vindman will lean into his claim to fame as the first White House official to testify under subpoena in Donald Trump’s first impeachment inquiry. On October 29, 2019, Vindman sat before Congress and calmly described what he heard on a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — a call in which the president pressed a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden’s son while Biden was running for president. Vindman said the conversation made him uneasy. History later called it the “perfect call.” Vindman did not.

His testimony aligned neatly with that of his supervisor Fiona Hill and Ambassador William Taylor, forming the backbone of the House’s case that the president had blurred the line between national interest and personal political favor. Imagine that. For his trouble, Vindman was later escorted out of the White House, fired from his post, and eventually pushed into early retirement from the Army. In Washington, that’s called paying the price for telling the truth.

In Florida, apparently, it’s called a back story for a Senate run.

“The last time you saw me was here,” Vindman opens in his video, “swearing an oath to tell the truth about a president who broke his.

“I stepped up when my country needed a soldier. I stood up when someone had to say no one is above the law,” Vindman says in his video. “Stand with me now to put a check on Donald Trump and the corrupt politicians who think your tax dollars are their personal piggy bank.

“The billionaires and the special interests will throw everything they’ve got to try to stop us. But in the infantry, we don’t back down from a fight.”

Well, he’s going to have to go to battle before he goes to war. Because there is going to be a competitive primary. Florida Democrats have been wandering the political desert for so long that this is going to feel like a swamp of opportunity. Especially after the historic win by Eileen Higgins in the Miami mayoral race.

Experts believe Vindman will have a fundraising advantage. His brother Eugene raised more than $18 million for his congressional campaign in Virginia, more than two GOP incumbents. That’s important because Florida is brutally expensive to campaign in. Television markets here chew up candidates like gators in mating season. And Democrats usually do not have the fundraising ceiling to compete statewide.

There is already a viable candidate. And while she may not have the same expectation around fundraising, State Rep. Angie Nixon, of Jacksonville, who announced her challenge to Moody last week, has also gotten under the skin of Republicans — and commandingly so — and earned her grass roots support the hard way.

A Florida native, Nixon first won her House seat in 2020, flipping a red district and becoming a voice for working families in Jacksonville and beyond. Her political identity isn’t shaped by safe centrism. Nixon has built her profile as a progressive troublemaker — someone willing to disrupt business-as-usual in Tallahassee. She once led a sit-in on the House floor protesting a congressional redistricting map championed by Ron DeSantis that cut out majority-Black districts, and has repeatedly pushed for transparency and accountability from GOP leaders.

This session, Nixon and State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith have filed the Visible Act (SB 316/HB 419), legislation that would require clear, visible identification by law enforcement officers during public-facing operations — protecting community members and legitimate officers alike.

But Democratic donor circles are already treating the Vindman name like a sacred relic from the Resistance Era. That matters in a state where money buys message, name recognition, and — occasionally — hope.

Now, let’s be clear: Florida has shifted hard red. Trump carried the state comfortably. DeSantis carried it. Rick Scott carried it. No Democrat has won a Senate seat here since 2012. This is not suddenly a toss-up because an impeachment celebrity bought sunscreen.

But what Vindman does provide is something Florida Democrats have lacked for years: a credible, fundable, nationally connected challenger. If political winds shift. If the economy sours. If Trump’s ongoing governance-by-chaos continues to wear thin. If suburban voters get restless again. Then having a candidate already in the arena — and fully financed — matters.

And of course, there’s the delicious irony: Donald Trump fired Alex Vindman. Now Vindman is running for Senate in Trump’s adopted home state. One imagines the former president somewhere in Mar-a-Lago muttering, “Very unfair. Very nasty. Total loser. Never heard of him.”

Florida politics is nothing if not theatrical.

So welcome to the race, Colonel Vindman. Bring your donor list, your righteous fury, and your impeachment flashbacks. Florida is a strange battlefield — part retirement community, part ideological proving ground, part fundraising furnace.

Whether voters here want a national resistance hero or just someone who can pronounce “Okeechobee” correctly remains to be seen.

But one thing is certain: The Senate race in Florida just got a lot more interesting.

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Alex Vindman, Ashley Moody, Florida Senate

Alex Vindman: From impeachment of Donald Trump to Florida Senate race added by Ladra on January 28, 2026
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