Alex Vindman, key Trump impeachment witness, launches Florida Senate run
Army veteran Alex Vindman, a key witness in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2019, is running for Florida Senate as a Democrat.
Vindman, who launched his campaign Tuesday, touted his role in Trump’s impeachment as he announced his campaign, showing clips of his testimony in his launch video.
“The last time you saw me was here, taking an oath to tell the truth about a president who broke his,” Vindman said in the video. “You see, my family came here as refugees to escape tyranny, and I certainly wasn’t going to bow down to a would-be tyrant.”
Democrats face an uphill battle to make Florida’s statewide elections competitive, which has shifted rapidly toward Republicans in recent years. Democrats haven’t won a Senate race there since Bill Nelson was re-elected in 2012.
Trump won Florida by 13 points in 2024 and Marco Rubio won re-election in 2022 by 16 points, winning nearly 58% of the vote.
Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel and Iraq War veteran, testified in 2019 that while serving on the National Security Council, he witnessed Trump attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden and his son, as well as the 2016 election, during a call between the two leaders.
Vindman, born in Ukraine, later retired from the military, alleging that Trump blocked his promotion. Vindman and his twin brother, Eugene, who won a Northern Virginia congressional district in 2024, were removed from their National Security Council posts after Trump’s impeachment trial.
“This president has unleashed a reign of terror and retaliation, not only against me and my family, but against all of us,” Vindman said as he launched his Senate campaign.
“Today our country is in chaos. Thug militias attacking citizens. Tariffs driving up prices. Health care premiums skyrocketing,” Vindman said in the video, which features footage of federal agents killing two people in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Vindman is running to take on Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, the former state attorney general who was appointed to the Senate after Rubio became Trump’s secretary of state. The November special election will determine who fills the final two years of Rubio’s term.
Vindman criticized Moody in his launch video, saying, “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.”
The crowded Aug. 18 Democratic primary features several candidates, including Jennifer Jenkins, who defeated a future leader of the conservative group Moms for Liberty in a race for Brevard County school board; Hector Mujica, who worked for Google’s philanthropic group; and State Rep. Angie Nixon.
