Florida, of all places, just became the stage where Democrats will act out their national existential drama dividing the insurgent left and pragmatic center.
The progressive maverick Angie Nixon’s upset win in the Democratic Senate primary this week jolted Florida politics, reshaping the dynamics of what had appeared to be a predictable race into one fraught with uncertainty — and, perhaps, opportunity.
Democrats, who have struggled for relevance over the past few election cycles in the state, were torn by a familiar mix of fear and excitement. Would Ms. Nixon’s unexpected nomination hurt the party’s centrist nominee for governor, David Jolly, a former Republican? Or would it bring a sudden shock of energy that the party had not experienced in nearly a decade?
“‘Can you both win on the same ballot?’” Mr. Jolly said in an interview on Thursday, repeating what many have asked him since the primary on Tuesday. “I don’t know. I mean, this is fascinating.”
The tug of war between Democratic moderates and increasingly left-wing progressives has defined this year’s midterm primary elections across the country. Candidates from the party’s left flank and democratic socialists have notched significant victories in blue and purple states. Few had predicted that red Florida would display that tension in its top-of-the-ticket races.
Republicans seized on Ms. Nixon’s relatively new affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America to cast every down-ballot Democrat as out of touch in a state that has leaned more and more toward the right over the past decade. The G.O.P. remains favored to win statewide races: Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 1.5 million in Florida, and President Trump won the state by 13 percentage points in 2024.
“If I told you last year that Florida would have a nominee to the United States Senate that was a self-declared socialist, would you believe me?” Senator Ashley Moody, the Republican incumbent, said at rally in Tampa on Thursday. “Not a joke!”
Attacks like that have forced Ms. Nixon and Mr. Jolly to spend much of their time since Tuesday on defense, doing television interviews to push back against the socialist label, which has proved especially difficult for Democrats to fend off in South Florida, home to many Latin Americans who fled left-wing governments.
Ms. Nixon, a state representative from Jacksonville, has been an unabashed progressive in Florida politics for the past decade, which is how most Democratic voters know her. She joined the D.S.A. only in June. The group did not endorse her, and their positions do not neatly align.
“I’m a capitalist who believes that we need some strong regulations,” Ms. Nixon told NBC’s “Meet the Press NOW” on Thursday. Ms. Moody, she added, “knows that I’m not a socialist.”
Ms. Nixon’s victory also does not fit neatly into the pattern that emerged with some of the other high-profile progressive victories this year.
In contrast to progressive candidates in Wisconsin and Michigan, who struggled in majority-Black precincts, Ms. Nixon won these areas by large margins. She also performed slightly worse in college-educated areas, where progressives have done well in other states. One pattern was consistent with previous contests: Ms. Nixon ran strong in areas with younger voters.
Ms. Nixon’s primary opponent, Alex Vindman, a former national security official, lost in the heavily democratic Broward County, where he lives, though he won in neighboring Palm Beach County. Both counties have high concentrations of Jewish voters, who have been trending away from the Democratic Party as it has grown more progressive.
Ms. Nixon did not run a campaign centered on Israel or foreign policy, but she supported a cease-fire in Gaza and publicly called out Palestinian deaths. Whether she will win over Jewish Democrats who backed Mr. Vindman remains in question.
“Her outreach to the Jewish community has not been good,” Richard Stark, a former state lawmaker and member of the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus who supported Mr. Vindman, said at Mr. Vindman’s campaign event on Tuesday night.
Mr. Vindman’s supporters and his campaign itself were stunned by Ms. Nixon’s 12-percentage-point victory. Campaign finance reports show that the campaign paid two different pollsters. The campaign never released internal polls, but it appeared clear that they had thought Mr. Vindman was ahead because he never took on Ms. Nixon more directly. Instead, he mostly ignored her.
Having moved to Florida only in 2023, Mr. Vindman had few relationships in the state and remained little known to most voters, in contrast to Ms. Nixon, a sitting state lawmaker and lifelong Floridian. Some Democrats have wondered this week whether, as the number of registered Democrats in the state has shrunk over the past eight years, the remaining party is more progressive.
Maybe municipal campaigns in big cities with Black candidates helped her. Maybe voters just preferred to vote for a woman.
Whatever the reason, Mr. Vindman ended the primary with about $7 million in the bank, money that could have been spent trying to defeat Ms. Nixon if he had thought he was vulnerable. On Thursday, Mr. Vindman gave $400,000 to the Florida Democratic Party, promising more gifts to come, and emailed his supporters urging them to contribute to Ms. Nixon’s campaign.
Longtime Democratic activists credited Ms. Nixon with campaigning across the state, even if it meant showing up to what Mr. Jolly called “chicken lunches” with 15 or 20 party stalwarts. Often, Mr. Jolly said, he and Ms. Nixon were the only candidates in attendance.
Ms. Nixon and Mr. Jolly are friendly, despite their policy differences. Democratic activists see potential advantages to their unlikely partnership, including the ability to appeal to different portions of the electorate to broaden support for the ticket.
Ms. Nixon has also proven herself to be a formidable organizer who knows how to gin up excitement among voters. The last Democratic candidates who were able to generate much enthusiasm in Florida were also Black: Andrew Gillum, who almost won the 2018 governor’s race, and Barack Obama, who won Florida in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.
Scott Arceneaux, a campaign consultant, said that he saw Ms. Nixon at the Florida Democratic Party’s annual fund-raiser, held in Orlando last month, “and she was all over.”
“Every meeting, she had her bullhorn,” he said, “just going around whipping people up. And folks love that.”
Some of her tactics, such as using a bullhorn on the floor of the state House to protest gerrymandering, a likely animating issue for Black voters who say it eliminates Black-majority districts, bothered some Democrats, said Dwight Bullard, senior political adviser for Florida Rising, a racial justice organization.
“People called me early in the campaign, trying to get to like, ‘Oh, could you get her to stop doing that,’” he recalled in an interview on Friday. “And I told them, first of all, I’m not going to tell anyone how to show up in this moment.”
More important, he added, Democrats should stop worrying about asking candidates to be more “electable” and less themselves in a time when voters are responding to candidates they consider genuine.
Her victory has led to some friction inside the party.
Nikki Fried, the party chairwoman, did not call Ms. Nixon until Friday, three days after the election. A unity rally that had been planned for Saturday near Orlando, when Mr. Vindman was the expected Senate nominee, was scrapped after Ms. Nixon won, in part because she had not been aware of the rally beforehand and the date did not work for her. Some Democratic activists had perceived that the party showed favoritism toward Mr. Vindman during the primary campaign, which it denied.
In an interview on Friday, Ms. Fried was circumspect about Ms. Nixon’s win.
“It’s going to be an interesting dynamic,” she said of having Ms. Nixon and Mr. Jolly atop the ticket. “The voters are looking for fighters. They want to know that someone hears them.”
Eunic Epstein-Ortiz, Ms. Nixon’s campaign manager, said in a statement that the nominee had heard from leaders across the state and country supporting her after her win.
“Right now, the Angie Nixon campaign for U.S. Senate is solely focused on continuing their 67-county strategy needed to defeat Ashley Moody this November,” Ms. Epstein-Ortiz said.
Ms. Nixon’s campaign said it raised $1 million in the first 48 hours after her win — more than she had raised in the entire primary — though that was still far less than the $8 million that Ms. Moody has in the bank.
On Thursday, Ms. Nixon received the endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and democratic socialist whose presidential campaign she worked on in 2016. Mr. Sanders joined Ms. Nixon and Representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a progressive from Orlando, on a call on Thursday night with 1,200 people, according to her campaign. The campaign said some 40,000 people have signed up to volunteer for Ms. Nixon.
“Her and David make such a great ticket,” Mr. Frost, who had endorsed both candidates ahead of the primary, said in an interview. “It showcases and resembles our big tent as Florida Democrats.”
Evan Reynolds and Luke Vrotsos contributed reporting.
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