Democratic socialist Angie Nixon scores upset win in Florida Senate primary

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - MIAMI — Democratic socialist Angie Nixon of Jacksonville, a progressive firebrand who ran an underdog campaign, scored an upset victory on Tuesday in Florida's Democratic primary race for the US Senate.

Nixon, 42, defeated Alex Vindman, a former national security official who was a top witness in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial. His entry was largely welcomed by Democratic Party leaders hoping to make Florida, which leans right, at least competitive this fall. Vindman far out-raised Nixon and was the clear front-runner in the race.

Nixon, who has served in the Florida state legislature since 2020, overcame Vindman’s massive cash advantage, leveraging support from labor unions, Black churches and the democratic socialist movement she recently joined to pull off a stunning upset.

There was no public polling ahead of the primary. Pollsters most likely saw little upside to spending money in a state that President Trump won by 13 percentage points in 2024.

Nixon, a union organizer, ran a grass-roots campaign, often driving herself to events across the state — clad in her signature hot pink outfits — and relying on volunteers and union members for field organizing. In a low-turnout primary, they bet that reaching enough Democratic voters directly, and talking to them about issues such as unaffordable health care and child care, would drive them to the polls to support Nixon.

The strategy succeeded: Nixon defeated Vindman across Florida’s urban counties, including in Miami-Dade and Broward, where Vindman has lived since he moved to the state in 2023.

Nixon rolled to victory despite an enormous fund-raising disparity. She raised about $975,000 during the campaign, while Vindman, powered by a national donor network, raised $16.3 million. Vindman was so confident in winning Tuesday that he had a fund-raiser scheduled for Sunday in Nantucket as he prepared for a costly general election.

Nixon will face Sen. Ashley Moody, who handily won the GOP primary.

Moody is heavily favored in the state dominated by Republican politics in recent years. She was temporarily appointed to a Senate seat in January 2025 after Marco Rubio vacated it to become secretary of state.

In the November special election, Moody and Nixon will compete for the remainder of Rubio’s Senate term through 2028.

Meanwhile, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, whose congressional district was eliminated this year by Republican state lawmakers, won the Democratic primary for the newly redrawn 20th Congressional District on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

Wasserman Schultz, who is white, defeated Black candidates who had strongly criticized her decision to run in the historically Black district, which includes most of Broward County’s African American and Caribbean American communities.

A spate of Republican gerrymanders across the South this year was almost certain to reduce the number of Black lawmakers in the House. The area that encompasses Florida’s 20th District has long elected a Black representative.

But Wasserman Schultz, an 11-term incumbent and a former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, argued that she had decades of experience representing South Florida at the state and federal levels. Her seniority, she said, would benefit the district’s constituents.

“We have to show the voters and the citizens of this state that the Republicans who cynically tried to rig our map are not going to be rewarded, like they weren’t rewarded today,” Wasserman Schultz told supporters on Tuesday night in Tamarac, Fla.

Surrounded by her team and some Black community leaders, Wasserman Schultz wiped away tears and embraced her father, who served as her campaign treasurer for 30 years. During the campaign, Ms. Wasserman Schultz far out-raised her rivals and made a point of attending many community events over the past two months.

Several Black candidates in the race had hoped that Wasserman Schultz, 59, would choose to run in a different district. But doing so would have required running against a fellow Democratic House member or for a Republican-leaning seat. The 20th District is safely Democratic, so Wasserman Schultz will be heavily favored to win in the November general election.

In June, four Black Democrats tried to coalesce around a unity candidate to face off against Wasserman Schultz. But they could not agree on which of them should remain in the contest.

On Tuesday, Wasserman Schultz defeated those four candidates.