The Sunshine State’s Progressive Possibility

On the floor of the Florida state legislature on April 29th, state Rep. Angie Nixon (D-13) stood wielding a pink bullhorn. Speaking into it, she called the new congressional maps that the legislature was voting to pass “unconstitutional” and “illegal.” It is indeed against the state’s constitution to redistrict strictly for partisan purposes, thanks to the Fair Districts Amendment that passed in 2010 with 63 percent support of Floridians. That is why new congressional maps have hitherto been redrawn after Census data is released each decade.

But like many other Republican governors, Ron DeSantis and the Florida Republican Party yielded to the Trump administration’s calls to redistrict in order to give themselves an advantage during the 2026 midterms. On the very day that the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on Louisiana vs. Callais, which gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (a provision that bans discriminatory voting practices), Republicans hurried a new map through the state legislature in a party-line vote, and DeSantis signed it. Had this map been in place for the 2024 election, Republicans would have won four additional House seats. The state Supreme Court, also dominated by Republicans, let the map stand.

Nixon’s protest resulted in her being reprimanded by the Florida House Rules & Ethics Committee. A day later, on May 15th, she was arrested for trespassing after staging a sit-in protest against the “illegally gerrymandered maps” at DeSantis’s office.

Nixon had been running a longshot campaign for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Marco Rubio for several months at that point—she announced her campaign in January and joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Working Families Party (WFP) a while later. Although her race wasn’t directly impacted by the redistricting, Black Floridians, the voting bloc she’ll need to win, were. 

Across the South, Black communities have seen their political representation decimated by the effect of Callais. In addition to Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas have redrawn their congressional maps to effectively disenfranchise Black voters. It’s a mechanical consequence of the fact that most Black Americans tend to vote Democrat, which on older congressional maps manifested as solidly blue districts. Now, many of those districts have been split to give Republican candidates a large handicap.

A handful of Democratic prospects have refused to back down from their campaigns, even with the odds stacked against them. Justin J. Pearson (Tennessee) and Shomari Figures (Alabama) are still running, perhaps with greater fervor than before. And if the polls are any judge, Black voters are enraged about the Supreme Court gutting the signature legislative accomplishment of the Civil Rights Movement.

PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATES ACROSS THE COUNTRY have been leading with the message that working-class Americans and their concerns require meaningful political representation. Nixon has joined this camp, standing alongside a growing number of young, Black Democrats challenging the party’s status quo. 

Nixon is leaning into her background as a lifelong Floridian, union organizer, and state representative for Florida’s District 13, which covers most of Jacksonville. Her identity as a Black woman from a working-class background has made her an attractive candidate to voters who share a similar identity. 

“She represents a lot of African Americans, especially African American women and just people in general who are not in the elite,” says Vincent Adejumo, founder of the Olu Institute of Learning Inc. and a public lecturer for the Florida Humanities Council. “She represents the everyday person who has struggles. But still, what she also represents is how to overcome it.”

Read: ‘We’re Still Here’: Young Black Democrats Fight Through Gerrymandering

Florida has the second-highest Black population of any American state. Black communities have especially felt the effects of the cost-of-living crisis, which is further compounded by an unemployment rate of 8 percent among Black Floridians. Serious income disparities exist between Black and White residents in Florida already, particularly for Black women, who make 61 cents for every dollar that white men do.

“I think people, when they think about Florida, have this perception. They think about tourist destinations—Disney World, beaches, palm trees,” says Dwight Bullard, senior political advisor for Florida Rising. “But the reality is that we are a state that is experiencing one of the largest wealth gaps in the country, and one of the most expensive states to live in.”

Nixon’s track record as a state representative, where she worked to address price gouging and expand child care, has served her well. “For people feeling the economic crunch, Angie experienced and witnessed that firsthand in terms of people that she’s trying to help from her organizing deeds to her political deeds,” Bullard says. “She’s also somebody that at this moment is offering solutions, which is what people want.”

Read: The Return of the Dixiecrat South

As a DSA and WFP member, Nixon’s campaign priorities reflect those of both organizations. Medicare for All, a universal jobs program, and the implementation of a national rent freeze are listed on her website as top concerns. Other issues, such as ending the war in Iran, federal guardrails for the construction of data centers, and ending mass incarceration and deportation, are also on her docket. 

During Florida’s Democratic primary, Nixon coasted to an unexpected victory, winning 56 percent of the vote, triumphing over Alex Vindman, a former Army officer who had raised $16 million to her $1 million. Her grassroots campaign has continued, with 97 percent of just over $11 million in donations coming from individual small donors. 

Republican incumbent Ashley Moody has raked in $14 million, with some of the largest donors being corporate PACs. In 2025, Moody was appointed by DeSantis to fill Florida’s Senate vacancy left by Marco Rubio’s resignation to serve as the U.S. secretary of state. As Florida’s attorney general, Moody joined the 2020 lawsuit Texas v. Pennsylvania, which aimed to overturn the presidential election results.

While attorney general, Moody’s office faced a grand jury investigation for its alleged misappropriation of $10 million in taxpayer money to the Hope Florida Foundation, a welfare assistance initiative founded by Casey DeSantis, Gov. DeSantis’s wife. The funds were meant to improve Medicaid for children in the state, but instead landed in the bank accounts of several political action committees. 

One was controlled by DeSantis and his chief of staff. It was then used to defeat Amendment 3, a constitutional change proposed in 2024 that would have legalized recreational marijuana. 

Moody proudly touts her endorsement from Trump, and calls herself “Florida’s America First fighter.” Although the description of her stances on core issues is limited on her website, Moody has indicated support for current Republican priorities like ensuring congressional funding for ICE, the military, and police.

Part of Moody’s campaign strategy has been attacking Nixon’s affiliation as a democratic socialist. She’s not the only one. Nixon may be in a precarious situation by identifying with the DSA in a state like Florida, which has voted Republican by large margins in recent history. Moody has regularly called Nixon a “socialist,” reinforcing a common misconception about the nature of democratic socialism. 

That said, the race is not over. While DeSantis won reelection by nearly 20 points in 2022, current polling suggests that Moody is up by just six points.

IN AN EFFORT TO BOLSTER Nixon’s chances, some of the left’s strongest voices have offered their endorsements. National leaders such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have joined Nixon on the campaign trail, attempting to galvanize a diverse coalition of voters.

Prominent Black politicians like former President Barack Obama, Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Maxwell Frost (D-FL) have also endorsed Nixon. In an acute moment marked by the decimation of Black political representation, motivation coming from legislative trailblazers has the potential to inspire Black voter turnout. 

Florida’s Black voters turned out in floods to win the state for Obama twice. Nixon will need the same level of participation to close the gap between her and Moody come Election Day. “Usually, during elections when there’s a gubernatorial campaign, the turnout among Black voters tends to be higher because it tends to be higher among all demographics of voters,” says Sharon Austin, a professor of political science at the University of Florida. Frustration about redistricting has motivated Black voters across the country, which has aided Democrats’ chances, including Nixon’s.

By focusing her campaign around issues that affect people regardless of race, Nixon has been able to attract voters from a wide range of backgrounds. “She’s not basing her campaign just on voters of color. She is talking about issues that affect people of all classes, especially people from the working class,” Austin says. “I don’t know if she’s going to win or lose, but I do know that she’s doing everything she needs to do to put herself in a position to be successful.”

No matter what the outcome of the election is, Nixon’s campaign, along with those of other young, Black Democrats, represents a transformation of America’s political fabric. “It’s really going to show that even if you’re in a situation where you’re a person of color or if you don’t have very much money, you can still win if you really get your message out there,” Austin says.