Former Brevard County school board member Jennifer Jenkins is running for the Senate in Florida as a Democrat.
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."
The year Jenkins won her Brevard County school board seat by 10 points, Trump won the county by nearly 17 points, which she said speaks to political crossover appeal in a state where Democrats have not won a Senate race since former Sen. Bill Nelson's re-election in 2012.
Jenkins, 38, a teacher, has been increasingly involved in statewide Democratic politics in recent years. She considered running against former Sen. Marco Rubio in 2022 and has become an increasing presence in Democratic politics, notably playing Rep. Katie Britt, R-Ala., in a "Saturday Night Live"-style skit at the party's statewide convention last year.
But she enters the race already at a disadvantage.
Moody has more than $2.2 million in the bank and the universal support of the White House and the Republican establishment in Florida. The Republican National Committee this month also used a little-known rule that will allow it to begin spending money on Moody's behalf during what would normally be considered primary season. Moody is not expected to face significant Republican opposition.
The uphill climb is made steeper for Jenkins by the fact that national Democrats, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, have generally abandoned Florida after more than a decade of stinging, expensive losses in the state.
That drop-off was evident over the past two midterm election cycles. In 2018, national Democrats groups spent nearly $60 million in Florida; a number that dropped to less than $2 million in 2022 -- when Rubio easily won re-election.
"I am always going to advocate for more support," Jenkins said. "I have been in contact with the DSCC in hopes to convince them it is worth their time."
She said a win over Moody would send "shock waves" and reshape how national Democrats view Florida after years of disappointment.
Jenkins' political rise in the state has largely been based on her advocacy for public schools and high-profile fights with Moms for Liberty, including creating her own political organization after having served one year as a school board member.
The group, Educated We Stand, was set up to fight what Jenkins called the attempted "conservative takeover" of state school boards. During the 2024 election cycle, the group raised $375,000; it was active in Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan; and it won nearly 80% of the races it endorsed in.
"Obviously, I have been an advocate for public education the past five years," she said. "It will be a focus of this campaign. Right now we have Linda McMahon in charge of our Department of Education, who willingly states she will dismantle it."
She also said her experience having to work a second job to supplement her teaching salary gives her insight into the economy and issues of affordability that "career politicians" cannot relate to, which she hopes helps make further inroads with people who may generally not vote for Democrats.
"They don't understand what it feels like," she said. "As an educator in the lowest-paid state [for teachers] in the country, I know what it's like to hustle to pay the bills."