What to Know About Angie Nixon, the Progressive Lawmaker Who Swept Florida’s U.S. Senate Primary

Florida’s Democratic US Senate primary ended in a surprise victory yesterday when progressive candidate Angie Nixon triumphed over her more moderate opponent, Alex Vindman, to win the party’s nomination for the Senate. Nixon, a member of the Florida House of Representatives, will face incumbent Republican senator Ashley Moody—who was appointed to fill Marco Rubio’s seat after he became secretary of state—in the November special election.

Nixon, who is also a member of the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, is the latest progressive candidate to prevail against moderate, establishment Democrats. Earlier this month Abdul El-Sayed earned the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s US Senate race, defeating the more moderate Haley Stevens. And last year New York City elected Zohran Mamdani mayor over former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, whose own Democratic primary loss spurred him to run as an Independent in the general election.

While the democratic socialist label remains charged, Nixon is adamant that she does not want to be defined by the party she belongs to. (She joined the DSA at the end of July.) “[W]e showed the world what people of Florida are all about,” Nixon said in an address to her supporters yesterday. “Medicare for all. Universal child care. Real, affordable housing. Fully funded public education. And an end to senseless wars.”

Below, here’s what you should know about Florida’s Democratic nominee for the United States Senate, Angie Nixon.

Despite the mounting support for progressive candidates, Nixon’s victory delivered a major upset to the establishment Democrats. Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former Director of European Affairs for the National Security Council, gained national attention when he was called as a witness in Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment trial.

Not only did Vindman enter the race with a higher profile, but he also had a significant financial upper hand: Vindman raised over $16 million while Nixon raised less than $1 million. “We have proved that everyday people are more powerful than corporations and billionaires,” she said at her watch party. “We were outspent 16 to 1, and we won.”

Per her campaign priorities, Nixon is passionate about the cost of living crisis, calling for Medicare for all, free childcare, and a national rent freeze, which she proposes paying for with a tax on billionaires. Nixon is also in favor of quality public education and has pledged to fight against climate change, mass incarceration and deportation, and AI. Nixon is also an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, a point of controversy within the Democratic Party.

Nixon has held office since 2020 when she unseated Representative Kimberly Daniels, who represented Florida’s 14th district. Before working as a lawmaker, Nixon was a small business owner, a children’s book author, and the director of the Florida Public Service Union’s Higher Education Campaign.

Nixon was arrested in May after staging a sit-in in Governor Ron DeSantis’s office in protest against a Republican effort to redraw the state’s congressional maps, which she criticized as gerrymandering. Nixon was charged with two misdemeanor counts of trespassing and resisting arrest and is due back in court in September. “[We] are fighting against a system that protects the ultra-rich while punishing hardworking families. We are not going to be intimidated,” she said after a July court appearance. “We are going to organize harder. We are going to speak louder, and we are going to win.”