U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon, a progressive Democrat, is reportedly going to be getting a cash boost from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders as she continues her uphill battle to unseat GOP Florida U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody this fall.
Sanders, a former presidential candidate and self-described democratic socialist from Vermont, first told Politico this week that he’s looking to use his $23 million campaign war chest to help elect progressive Democrats in high-profile races this fall. According to Sanders’ campaign, this includes Nixon’s people-powered campaign in Florida.
“We got three Senate races in Michigan and Minnesota and Florida that I want to see us win, three great candidates, and they’re all taking on enormous amounts of money,” Sanders told Politico in an interview Tuesday.
Sanders endorsed Nixon — a former union organizer, Florida House representative and mother of five from Jacksonville — shortly after she won the Democratic primary election in an upset victory this August against moderate candidate Alex Vindman.
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Vindman, a U.S. Army veteran who only moved to Florida a few years ago, was the presumed frontrunner in the race. He outspent Nixon’s campaign roughly 16 to 1.
“In Florida, if we can develop a strong grassroots movement from one end of the state to the other — people knocking on doors, talking to their neighbors, making clear how important it is to elect Angie — I don’t care how much money her opponent will have,” said Sanders, speaking on a Sept. 14 campaign call with Nixon over Zoom.
“Angie’s gonna win,” he stressed. “They got the money; we have the people.”
Nixon’s platform — like Sanders’ — includes support for universal healthcare through Medicare for All, raising the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour, enacting a federal moratorium on data centers, strengthening workers’ rights, providing free childcare, and ensuring billionaires fond of pay-to-play schemes pay their fair share in taxes.
“Angie understands that at a time when we have massive income and wealth inequality, yeah, the billionaires on top are going to have to start paying their fair share of taxes, so that we can fund the needs of working people,” Sanders said on the Sept. 14 call.
Can a Democrat win a statewide race in Florida?
Nixon is running for Senate in a state that has trended increasingly red in recent years, with the Republican Party currently holding a more than 1.5 million-voter registration advantage.
She’s facing a wide funding gap between herself and GOP incumbent Moody, a former state attorney general appointed to U.S. Senate by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year to fill the vacancy left by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
According to Politico’s Florida Playbook, Moody had about $9.3 million in campaign cash on hand as of the most recent July fundraising reports.
Nixon’s campaign, in comparison, had raised a little less than $1 million through late July (and had even less on hand), although her campaign announced she had raised another $1 million in just in the first 48 hours after her August primary win. Her campaign hasn’t publicly shared updated fundraising numbers since.
Even so, recent polling shared by Florida Politics appears to validate Sanders’ sentiment about people power mattering more than money. According to a survey of more than 900 likely voters conducted in mid-September by St. Pete Polls, Nixon is nearly tied with Moody in the U.S. Senate race, with each nabbing about 45 percent support from likely voters.
Another 3 percent said they plan to vote for someone else, while 7 percent remain undecided.
Support back home
Closer to home in Florida, Nixon has earned endorsements from more than three dozen local and state elected officials including U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost, as well as various labor unions, Equality Florida, the anti-Trump group 50501, and Planned Parenthood.
After her primary win, the Florida Democratic Party also offered Nixon their backing, despite earlier tension over her decidedly more progressive platform and willingness to associate herself with groups like the Democratic Socialists of America (which she joined as a member this past June).
“From her service within the Florida Democratic Party and her work as a union organizer to her leadership in the Florida Legislature, Angie understands that politics should be about actually improving people’s everyday lives,” the FDP shared in a news release on Aug. 24.
“She has never been afraid to take on powerful interests or to stand up for all communities too often ignored by Tallahassee, or fight for an economy where working people, not corporations and the well-connected, come first.”
Florida is currently represented by two Republicans in the U.S. Senate — Moody and former Gov. Rick Scott, whose seat isn’t up for election until 2030. The Democratic Party has been accused of all but giving up on winning in Florida, investing little in recent election cycles to help get top-ticket Democrats elected in the Sunshine State.
Eunic Epstein-Ortiz, Nixon’s campaign manager, thanked Sanders for declining to give up. “We’re grateful for his support, including his willingness to invest directly in winning for the people of Florida,” she told Politico in a statement. “Sen. Sanders sees the opportunity here and is willing to help us seize it. He knows Florida is competitive, believes Angie can win, and understands this is a race worth investing in.”
