In conservative Florida, Alex Vindman – a retired army intelligence officer who blew this whistle on Donald Trump in his first term – appeared set to carry the Democratic establishment banner as the party’s staged a long-shot bid to topple a Republican US senator. Florida’s Democratic voters had other ideas. Democratic socialist Angie Nixon emerged a surprise victor in the US Senate primary on Tuesday, after a campaign in which she was outfunded and outspent by Vindman at a ratio of more than 10 to 1.
Her triumph sent shock waves through the Democratic party machine, as it prepares to mount a challenge to the incumbent Republican senator, Ashley Moody, in November’s US midterm elections. Nixon, a tenacious leftwing fighter and former union organizer who has represented Jacksonville in the Florida house since 2020, raised $975,000 in her campaign, compared with Vindman’s $16.3m, but garnered more than 750,000 votes to her opponent’s 550,000 – an overwhelming victory that left his campaign scratching its head as to where it all went wrong. She noted, however, that polling largely focused on how Nixon and Vindman would respectively fare against Moody in a general election, rather than whether Democratic voters preferred Nixon or Vindman as their party’s candidate.
I still don’t know the answer,” added Jewett. She only recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America, and was not endorsed by them. She is also set to face trial next month – charged with trespassing and resisting an officer without violence – after a sit-in protest at the office of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, in May.
It remains to be seen how attractive Nixon will be to Florida’s wider electorate in November. As Jewett notes, Florida is heavily populated by Hispanic communities, and Moody is certain to try to affix the “socialist” label to Nixon’s campaign that has long proven toxic at the ballot box for such voter groups. The conservative commentator Noah Rothman, writing in National Review on Wednesday, went one step further, characterizing Nixon as “communist-curious”.
Because it demonstrates that Republicans are right when they warn that the socialist phenomenon is coming to a town near you.” Pollsters already appear to have concluded that Nixon’s primary victory has limited Democrats’ chances of taking the seat. Within hours of her fiery victory speech on Tuesday night, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the respected analytical wing of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, moved the Florida Senate race from “likely Republican” to “safe Republican”. It also leaves Democratic leaders in the US Senate, who publicly warmly welcomed Nixon’s win, in something of a quandary.
While their path to reclaiming control of the upper chamber from Republicans was never predicated on success in Florida, Vindman, as a moderate, was considered to have at least an outside shot of an upset. Accordingly, the party’s hierarchy was preparing to send dollars and resources to bolster his campaign. Now, with Nixon on the ticket, analysts expect a rethink.
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