Florida's Angie Nixon isn't the socialist you've heard about

Florida's Angie Nixon isn't the socialist you've heard regarding. Add Axios as your preferred source to.

Key points

• One exception, a mid-July University of North Florida poll, discovered Nixon faring better against Moody than Vindman – but trailing by 8 points.
• Months afterwards, she introduced a Gaza ceasefire resolution the Florida House rejected 104-2.
• "Socialism has no place in the Sunshine State and Floridians will reject socialist Nixon in November, " NRSC spokesman Nick Puglia remarked.
• There's particularly solid antipathy in South Florida's sizable Cuban, Venezuelan, Colombian and Nicaraguan communities that equate socialism with oppression and violence.
• Democrat Alex Vindman outraised her almost 17-to-1, and she won without endorsements from the DSA, Sen.

"I don't campaign as a member of any organization, " she informed Axios, echoing comments she produced to MSNOW and CBS. "I don't believe in labels."

Nixon remarked she joined the DSA as she supports its fights over housing, public education, corporate power and – above all – Medicare for All.

Meanwhile, the latest: Since winning, Nixon has moved fast to separate herself from DSA orthodoxy.

When asked if she's a socialist, "No, " she laughed. "I own a business." (It's a bookstore called Cafe Resistance.).

"No, " she doesn't back abolishing all prisons – just for-profit ones. Nor does she backing "defunding" police or having so-called "open borders."

"No, " she said, "I do not celebrate Castro" – and she disagreed with the national DSA's controversial commemoration of the late Cuban dictator.

"Yes, " she will campaign with progressives and moderates, including David Jolly, the ex-Republican now running as the Democratic nominee for governor.

Notably, the major picture: Socialism is gaining with the Democratic base and younger voters. But in Florida, it's been seen as general election poison.

Pro-Israel Jewish voters tend to oppose the DSA since of its opposition to Israel's treatment of Palestinians, a cause Nixon embraces. (She calls Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a war criminal.).

For context, the intrigue: In early July, some DSA activists questioned Nixon's socialist purity when she sought an endorsement from the group.

In screenshots first documented by Politico, a Miami organizer called her "good on Palestine" and close to unions and movement groups, but "not a socialist or DSA member."

Besides, the organizer wrote, Nixon "will probably lose, " and endorsing her "advances the narrative that DSA can't win in swing states." National DSA leaders were blindsided by Nixon's win.

In practice, the miss exposes a potential blind spot in an organization that routinely faults Democratic leaders for losing touch with the grassroots.

In practice, the national DSA declined to comment, and the Miami activist didn't respond to a request for one.

Catch up quick: Nixon's double-digit victory was the biggest upset in modern Florida Democratic politics.

Democrat Alex Vindman outraised her almost 17-to-1, and she won without endorsements from the DSA, Sen. Bernie Sanders or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Sanders backed her two days after the primary.

But she had an organizing base built over almost two decades in politics and local activism and a campaign that put its limited capital into organizers in overlooked communities.

For context, the backstory: Nixon is both a movement progressive and a Democrat's Democrat, a homegrown Floridian who's worked almost every level of the party. In 2016, she was Sanders' African American outreach deputy field director.

Four years afterwards, she unseated an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ Democrat in Florida's state House with a record of defeating challengers. Nixon won by 20 points with backing from progressives, unions, even the local chamber's political arm.

She's organized unions and worked on city, state and federal campaigns. She served in the local party and ran organizing operations for Florida's Democratic Party.

Yet she remains embedded in movements pushing Democrats left. Her bookstore doubles as an activist hub: one group held its monthly session there days after her win.

Between the lines: Nixon became the Florida Legislature's most visible left-wing Democrat – and one of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' most dogged antagonists.

In 2022, she led a sit-in against his congressional map. When Republicans cut the House cameras, Nixon livestreamed the confrontation.

This year, she disrupted another redistricting vote with a pink bullhorn, then was arrested during a sit-in outside DeSantis' office.

State Sen. Tracie Davis notes Democrats in Tallahassee had been "walking in a daze." Nixon, she states, "woke people up."

Flashback: After a racist gunman killed three Black individuals in her Jacksonville district, a widely shared photo demonstrated Nixon, arms akimbo, in a "Stand with Black Women" T-shirt, glaring at DeSantis.

By the numbers: Nixon's voting rights fights gained urgency after the Supreme Court curtailed the Voting Rights Act.

Notably, an Axios analysis of precinct data discovered Nixon's backing rose the younger and more heavily Black a precinct was, echoing the coalition assembled by the state's last progressive firebrand, Andrew Gillum, in 2018.

In the governor's primary, Jolly's backing ran the opposite way, rising as precincts became whiter and older. Their contrasting bases could be complementary, if the campaigns can unite.

Jolly has repeatedly remarked he likes Nixon but he rejects socialism and the DSA.

Yes, but: In every election, Florida Democrats – no matter how moderate – obtain pegged as socialists.

Nixon's challenge: keep a broad coalition from being flattened into a label she rejects.

Meanwhile, the other side: The National Republican Senatorial Committee notes Nixon is a socialist and she can't run away from it.

What's next: Nixon now faces Republican Sen. Ashley Moody – appointed to Marco Rubio's seat when he became President Trump's secretary of state – in a race forecasters rate as an straightforward win for the GOP.

Most public polling assumed a Moody-Vindman matchup. One exception, a mid-July University of North Florida poll, discovered Nixon faring better against Moody than Vindman – but trailing by 8 points.

For now, florida' s Angie Nixon isn' t the socialist you' ve heard about remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.