Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who has carefully picked which progressive Democrats to support in this year’s midterm elections, quietly made her way to Central Florida on Wednesday to lend her star power to Angie Nixon’s underdog Senate candidacy.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez encouraged more than 50 campaign volunteers and organizers gathered at a park in Kissimmee, south of Orlando, to devote their time and energy to spreading the word about Ms. Nixon’s campaign — weeks before a single ballot is mailed out.
“They don’t see us coming,” she told them. “My favorite way to move is, we don’t go to the flashy places. This isn’t about fighting for Miami.”
“We run up the numbers here,” she added, “and then we will rack them up everywhere else, too.”
When Florida was still a pre-eminent battleground state not long ago, much of its Democratic energy originated in South Florida. But as that region has grown more Republican, the heart of the state’s progressive movement has moved to Orlando and its fast-growing suburbs.
Ms. Nixon, who is running against Senator Ashley Moody, the Republican incumbent, does not typically hold traditional rallies. Instead, she makes brief appearances intended to sign up volunteers, get them to download a canvassing app and then push them to get right to work calling voters or knocking on doors.
The strategy lifted Ms. Nixon in the Democratic primary last month, when she shocked the party establishment and won by 12 percentage points on a campaign built mainly around field work and social media, despite being vastly out-raised.
That strategy will be harder to pull off in a general election, when candidates have to reach a broader swath of voters, including independents and Republicans, in a big, diverse state that is expensive to campaign in.
Ms. Nixon has challenged Ms. Moody to debate her. On Wednesday, a local Jacksonville television station said Ms. Moody had declined its debate invitation, citing an answer that Ms. Moody gave in a television interview on Tuesday in which she called Ms. Nixon “truly anti-American.” In response, Ms. Nixon called Ms. Moody in a statement “runaway Ashley.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a potential contender in the next presidential election, endorsed Ms. Nixon last week, but she did not promote her Florida trip. The only news reporter in attendance at the event on Wednesday was a photographer for The New York Times. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told the volunteers that she had earlier stopped by a local bakery. Kissimmee is heavily Puerto Rican, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is of Puerto Rican descent.
“It’s good to be backed by people who are not bought and paid for,” Ms. Nixon said at the event.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was introduced by another big supporter of Ms. Nixon’s: Representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the first Gen Z member of Congress. Mr. Frost, along with other local officials, has assembled a progressive coalition that campaigns year-round in Central Florida for progressive candidates and issues.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez promised to defend Ms. Nixon against racist attacks such as the one Laura Loomer, the far-right influencer allied with President Trump, made against her and other Black politicians. (Ms. Loomer described Ms. Nixon and others on social media as “ghetto Black communist,” with a crude epithet tacked on at the end.) That way, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, Ms. Nixon — who joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June — might remain focused on campaigning as an unapologetic progressive.
“What we seek to prove,” she said, is that Democrats do not have to run from “some very unimaginative, unambitious place in order to win a statewide election.”
“The way that we do it is by being uncompromising in how visionary and ambitious we want to be for people,” she added. “And to say with our whole chest, ‘We will guarantee health care to every American.’ We can do it without taking big money, we can do without having to compromise our values. We can fight for it all.”
Zack Wittman contributed reporting.
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