Democratic socialist Angie Nixon clinches surprise primary win in Florida US Senate race

In an upset for the Democratic establishment, progressive Angie Nixon won the party’s US Senate primary in Florida, beating former army intelligence officer Alexander Vindman.

Nixon, a state representative and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, had significantly less funding going into the primary – with $975,000 to Vindman’s $16.3m at the end of July, according to Florida Politics.

Vindman was previously better known for being a whistleblower leading to Donald Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 after the US president sought to withhold military aid to Ukraine.

Democrats have their sights set on upsetting Republican Ashley Moody in the US Senate general election. Moody, picked by DeSantis to replace Marco Rubio when he became secretary of state last year, won what was almost a token primary election to run in November to serve the remaining two years of Rubio’s term.

Nixon, who was born in Jacksonville, has aggressively opposed DeSantis’s policies, including with a sit-in at the governor’s office this spring to protest Republican redistricting, the Miami Herald reported. That demonstration resulted in her facing misdemeanor charges of trespassing and resisting, which she is fighting in court.

Vindman’s campaign had been focused on Moody, not his primary opponent, and he did not agree to debate Nixon, despite her public calls for him to take the stage with her.

“Floridians don’t want the establishment in Washington DC deciding who their Democratic nominee and US senator is going to be,” Nixon told the Tampa Bay Times in an earlier interview. “I’m someone who’s willing to debate. He’s not. I’m someone who doesn’t have to be briefed on the issues Floridians are facing because I’ve been fighting the attacks alongside them for nearly two decades.”

In the first election in the state after redistricting, other establishment Democrats in the state prevailed. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an 11-term congresswoman and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, defeated Elijah Manley, a 27-year-old substitute teacher who was endorsed by a progressive group. Wasserman Schultz had faced criticisms for running in a district that has a plurality of Black voters and has long been represented by a Black Democrat.

Wasserman Schultz’s previous district was broken up by Republicans’ gerrymandered congressional maps, and she chose not to run in the district where she lives, but in a newly drawn one that was solidly blue.

Jared Moskowitz, a two-term congressman and centrist Democrat, defeated a democratic socialist challenger, running in a new coastal seat extending from Delray Beach to Miami Beach. Moskowitz was up against Oliver Larkin, a 34-year-old who called for universal healthcare and free tuition at public universities and has supported abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Moskowitz was the first congressional Democrat to back Trump’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) initiative, which dismantled the US Agency for International Development. Moskowitz also faced criticism from Larkin over his support for a Republican-backed law that expanded ICE’s detention authority. The centrist congressman has also been a staunch supporter of Israel and voted against a resolution to restrict US military involvement in Iran.