Angie Nixon Will Run Again

When former Sen. Marco Rubio stepped down to join the Trump administration as secretary of state in 2025, Ashley Moody, the state’s attorney general, was appointed to take his place by Gov. Ron DeSantis. She was expected to serve comfortably for the remainder of her term, but this was rattled by the results of the special election, where Democrat Angie Nixon came within spitting distance of a remarkable victory. 

Current ballot counts show that Moody only won by around three percentage points, 50.9-48 percent.

Florida hasn’t seen a surge in Democratic voters the way it has this year since the second time former President Barack Obama was elected. Nixon enjoyed a last-minute endorsement from Obama himself, joined by other Democratic heavyweights like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez joined Nixon on the campaign trail. 

Nixon’s identity as a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Working Families Party candidate put her in a difficult position in Florida, a state with a strong red voter base. Receiving official support from center-left, establishment Democrats might have made a difference when it came to encouraging more undecided voters to vote for Nixon. Receiving funding from the national party could have helped even more. 

“I think the national [Democratic] party and a lot of Black female candidates, especially, would look at Angie Nixon’s situation and question whether or not the Democratic Party provides enough support for Black women when they’re running for long-shot offices,” says Sharon D. Wright Austin, professor of political science at the University of Florida. 

National Democratic PACs were hesitant to divert finite resources from high-profile Senate races to Nixon’s insurgent campaign. One of the reasons for that might be Nixon’s unabashedly pro-worker, anti-establishment platform. Another feels like the inevitable outcome of a myopic intraparty perception that her chances in the great state of Florida were slimmer than they turned out to be.

Neither the Senate Majority PAC nor the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) spent a dime to support Nixon through Election Day. Yet they allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to boost Democratic Senate candidates elsewhere, nearly none of whom are Black. 

For instance, the Senate Majority PAC dropped $87.4 million to support Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown in his challenge against incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH); the DSCC doled out $10.4 million to promote Brown. The Senate Majority PAC spent $46.5 million in support of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, $37.3 million for Troy Jackson in Maine, and $27.6 million in favor of James Talarico in Texas. 

One exception to this is the late money given to Scott Colom in Mississippi against incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. With 83 percent of the vote in at press time, that race is still too close to call. 

Other Democratic PACs did show up for Nixon to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, but without the institutional backing of the party’s national apparatus, it just became that much harder for Nixon to surmount the ostensibly insurmountable. 

Although spending from the DSCC was noticeably absent in Nixon’s race, her campaign was fueled by individual donations. Out of the nearly $11.5 million raised, around $11 million came from individual donors. These numbers are testimony to the power of Nixon’s grassroots campaigning approach. Campaigning on the ground, including with Ocasio-Cortez, clearly played a significant role in tonight’s election results as well. 

The impact in down-ballot races was noticeable. Though Florida did not flip its governor’s race, Democrats won enough seats in the state legislature to deny Republicans a supermajority.

Prior to running for the Senate, Nixon worked as a union organizer and served as a state representative, representing Jacksonville. Her campaign was marked by consistent attempts to connect with a diverse array of voters, leading with unifying messages such as combating the affordability crisis. Although it’s too early to concretely say, Black voters in Florida most likely provided the backbone for Nixon’s success. 

Despite a lack of investment in Nixon’s campaign from both Democratic PACs and bigwigs, Black voters appear to have proved that in the face of daunting odds, they’ll show up and out at the polls. This certainly has been reflected across the country. Black voters have been especially motivated this election season, particularly in states that have redistricted, such as Florida. It’s moved the needle in other races and has handed Democrats a much-needed boost. 

Moody will have to run again for a full term in 2028. Given how close the matchup between Moody and Nixon ended up, the energetic progressive insurgent is expected to try again. 

“The sky’s the limit for her because now she also has a national following because her campaign has gotten so much national attention, and it also shows the power of grassroots campaigning,” says Austin. “Even though she didn’t win the election, a lot of people really listened to her, and she had a message that a lot of people really wanted to hear.”