I’m still trying to wrap my head around Florida statehouse Rep. Angie Nixon’s stunning upset in the U.S. Senate primary yesterday. It wasn’t a squeaker. Rep. Nixon beat Alex Vindman by 12 points, even though his campaign outspent hers 16 to 1. She had no support from the state party, which, like everyone else, assumed Vindman was a shoo-in.
She was born and raised in the Jacksonville area, a union organizer and Democrat who’s served in the statehouse for several years. Nixon being a Florida native could have been a factor since the Vindmans are recent arrivals to the state. But only a third or so of Florida residents were born here, so that probably didn’t matter all that much.
During her statehouse career, Nixon got critical legislation across the finish line in a wingnut supermajority chamber that she has called a “hostile work environment.” It sure was that when she led the fight against DeSantis’s post-VRA gerrymander to minimize Democratic — and especially black Democratic — representation. Nixon took a bullhorn to the floor of the statehouse and then staged a sit-in at DeSantis’s office, for which she was arrested.
It may melt some very online brains to learn that despite not being a white, male, sexist trustafarian, Nixon is a DSA member, although a fairly recent one who doesn’t play up the connection constantly. However, she was endorsed by “Squad” Reps Tlaib and Omar along with Florida’s youngest federal representative, progressive U.S. House Rep. Maxwell Frost.
The Tampa Bay Times covered Rep. Nixon’s victory speech:
“To the people who said that a working-class Black woman couldn’t do this, that a union organizer from Jacksonville who refused corporate PAC money, that we the people couldn’t do this, look at us now…”
In her speech, Nixon rattled off the priorities she said she will fight for: “Medicare for all, universal childcare, real affordable housing, fully funded public education and an end to senseless war.” She later added a $25 federal minimum wage to the list.
Vindman, to his great credit, got on board immediately:
I still believe in the American Dream, because I’ve lived it. It’s worth fighting for.
Rep. Nixon ran a strong campaign. I will be standing by her side in the fight against Ashley Moody. I hope you’ll join me.
— Alexander S. Vindman (@avindman.bsky.social) August 18, 2026 at 9:08 PM
The conventional wisdom is that the word “socialist” is so toxic in Florida that it will sink anyone associated with it who runs statewide. Maybe that’s true, but it’s also true that Republicans call everyone to the left of Rick Scott a socialist.
Republicans called Joe Biden a socialist. Maybe their recent escalation from calling Democrats “socialists” to lying that they are “communists” is a sign that the lie is losing its triggering effect. I don’t know.
Can Nixon win in the general election? Fuck if I know. I’ve lived here all my life and followed politics fairly closely, and I don’t understand the state’s politics and have accepted that I never will.
I’m sure a passel of negative nellies is poised to parachute into comments to declare definitively that Nixon can’t win. To that, my prebuttal is whatever, man.
Yesterday, no one thought Angie Nixon had a chance in the primary either. She won convincingly by putting in the work and building a coalition across diverse communities. In one of the Tampa Bay Times election live-blogs yesterday, long before anyone had a clue this upset was in the making, a reporter noted that Nixon was the only candidate with door-knockers on the street.
If Nixon has a path to victory, I think it will be block by block and bloc by bloc. Black Democrats are understandably livid about Republicans carving up districts to erase their representation. Many in immigrant communities are pissed off about the egregious cruelty of Trump’s deportation campaign.
Lots of ordinary Floridians are pissed off about spiraling prices and stunned by how much the state has changed over the past several years. It’s really hard to explain how much if you haven’t seen it first hand, and it’s not for the better.
This used to be an affordable state, but the trade-off was low wages. We still have relatively low wages, but now housing costs have doubled or tripled and the cost of everything else is through the roof.
We’ve always had a seasonal plague of rich perverts (see Trump, Epstein), but now billionaires have poured into the state and control its politics from behind walled-off compounds while influencer weirdos have made the state their headquarters.
One of the greatest obstacles Nixon will face is apathy — the helpless feeling that everything is rigged and nothing can change. I think that’s why a lot of people don’t bother to vote. If Nixon can give people a reason to believe that we can do better, I think she can win.
Open thread.
