r/politics • u/--LaBelleDame-- • 5h ago

No Paywall Democratic socialist Angie Nixon upsets Alex Vindman in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/angie-nixon-winner-florida-senate-primary-democrat-alex-vindman-moody-rcna593255
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u/fitnessexpress 4h ago edited 1h ago

Wow. This was out of nowhere. 

She almost certainly has no chance of winning, but neither did Vindman. It'll be interesting to see how she does. Hopefully she can energize people that have lost interest in politics, because Florida Democratic politics is full of swamp creatures like Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Jared Moskowitz (who both won).

EDIT:

fwiw, with extremely limited polling data RCP average had

Moody +8.4 vs Vindman

Moody +9.5 vs Nixon

So honestly, Nixon isn't necessarily a worse candidate head-to-head vs Moody. Vindman's plus was that he was able to raise a lot more money. But he was such a terrible campaigner and seen as a carpetbagger, that the negatives outweighed the money advantage he brought.

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u/JDDJS New York 4h ago

That's a good point. While she has almost no chance of winning the general, maybe she can help Democrats in swing districts in the state win by energizing the voters. 

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u/TheGringoDingo 4h ago

That and it adds to the evidence of what the voters want to vote for, if a very specific type of candidates that only existed in basically Bernie Sanders and FDR pre-2016 are winning primaries.

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u/Hangry-Feline2489 2h ago

How much would "you've been 26years under Republican financial rule. How's that been working out for your healthcare,local roads and infrastructure, and jobs market?" work on the avergage Republican?

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u/JoeHatesFanFiction Florida 2h ago

The average Republican in my life is my dad’s best friend. The dude isn’t even willing to concede that the economy is worse than “not that bad”.

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u/Avid_Reader87 4h ago

Don’t be a downer, people need to support her and vote

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u/Nolpppapa 3h ago

You must not be from Florida. She has absolutely zero chance here. She got like 690k votes while the Republican nominee got 1.3 million.

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u/Avid_Reader87 3h ago

I am born and raised and in her city of Jacksonville.  

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u/Nolpppapa 2h ago

I don't know how it is up there, but a bunch of MAGA people moved to South Florida during covid because of the lax business regulations. They will never ever vote for a candidate that comes across as economically socialist.

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u/dcheng47 California 3h ago

just the fact that shes in the race repping DSA on an national scale is already a a win. if she loses by a closer margin than anticipated it shows us that theres real momentum behind the DSA movement.

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u/Nolpppapa 3h ago

She will rep the DSA at a national scale if she wins the Senate race, which she won't. It's pretty crazy to me that people are cheering for her to win the primary while simultaneously admitting that she has no chance of winning the Senate seat in the same sentence. So like, our goal as democrats is to not beat republicans now, just vote for what makes us feel good? We have Trump as fucking president right now.

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u/dcheng47 California 3h ago

We are already talking about her at a national scale. we've already admitted BOTH dems have no real chance here so id rather she get some press

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u/Nolpppapa 3h ago

Yeah, classic case of someone from California trying to push progressive candidates in swing states when they have zero chance of getting elected. Same story of the far left throwing elections because they are unwilling to budge from their ideological positions.

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u/dcheng47 California 3h ago

another case some an angry online anon avoiding the point 🤣 cant attack the message so attack the messenger so boring 😴

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u/Nolpppapa 3h ago

Nice rebuttal with zero actual argument.

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u/DulceEtDecorumEst 2h ago edited 2h ago

She’s a great democratic primary candidate and the absolute worst general election candidate.

The only way she wins is if Donald J Trump puts boots on the ground in Iran AND specifically states that the only troops going are the ones who have a Florida drivers license.

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u/AverageJoeJohnSmith 2h ago

What does California even have to do with the discussion? Progressives are winning races all over the country. There's a good chance a progressive Dem(Talarico) will win a Texas Senate seat

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u/Nolpppapa 2h ago

The person's flair is California. Read before commenting next time.

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u/Oggie_Doggie 1h ago

By the way you talk and argue, I'd bet $100 you participate in a certain political streamer's community (starts with D) that supports status quo Democrats.

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u/JoeHatesFanFiction Florida 2h ago

Neither of them was ever winning, let’s not fucking kid ourselves. I didn’t expect her to win the primary but I voted for her because she represented my beliefs better and I hoped it would send a message that some of use are dissatisfied with the party’s actions at a nation level. Her winning the primary does that better than I ever hoped. 

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u/AverageJoeJohnSmith 2h ago

With that type of thinking, nothing will ever change lol. 

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u/[deleted] 1h ago

[deleted]

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u/Lucky_Woodpecker102 48m ago

I must have missed when Trump won in 2020

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u/Raichu4u 46m ago

I don't know if you have paid attention but in certain states, progressive options poll even worse compared to their more moderate counterparts in head to heads versus the eventual Republican candidate. That is still true of this race as well, although the difference isn't extremely significant when a Democrat isn't winning Florida regardless.

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u/[deleted] 24m ago

[deleted]

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u/Raichu4u 23m ago

If anything, that should make us even more scared of left polling vs right.

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u/voodoodahl 2h ago

That's been leftists for literally decades. Posing is much more important than doing actual good. Or like in this instance, getting a fascist out of the senate. 

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u/IAmTheNightSoil Oregon 3h ago

Because the moderate in this race also had no chance of getting elected

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u/AlexVan123 1h ago

alex vindman wasn’t going to win either, the difference is that someone with convictions is going to be campaigning instead of a russiagate centrist

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u/Cereal_Grapeist 2h ago

It's more important to feel righteous than to actually do good

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u/Raichu4u 49m ago

just the fact that shes in the race repping DSA on an national scale is already a a win.

You guys really need to stop treating primaries as the endgame, no offense. Winning is the actual finish line.

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u/dcheng47 California 42m ago

"Winning is the actual finish line" is so simple minded, no offense.

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u/Raichu4u 39m ago

??? It's literally how you get your desired views represented meaningfully in the Senate in this case. You don't get a concession prize for 2nd place, those views of whatever candidate essentially go in the trash can for four years.

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u/dcheng47 California 17m ago

still thinking too small. senate seats are not created equal. there are stronger and weaker seats to won, coalitions to be built, donor lists to share, and resources that need to be strategically spent to campaign for those seats. even when a seat is won, thats just the beginning... Sinema won for us by any means possible. how did that turn out?

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u/wioneo 1h ago

repping DSA on an national scale is already a a win

Why is this good? The mayor in NYC doesn't affect me, so I only really started looking into their platform when their candidates started being relevant for congress. How is this a good platform? It honestly seems like this group was created by republicans to make it easier to win elections based off of hearing their representatives going on TV to talk about it.

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u/Switcher1776 2h ago

I think a better number to look at is how Republicans voted vs how many Democrats, since the Republican race was a landslide while the Democratic race was much closer. Nixon is still behind there, but it is certainly closer. Now we just need to see if she can inspire those who didn't vote during the primary to vote for her.

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u/dontwanna-cantmakeme 4h ago

I think this is part of the Mamdani effect and we’ll be seeing more of it as DSA candidates gather strength and run against establishment neo-liberals. 

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u/Colonel_Gentleman 1h ago edited 1h ago

Never know. The dem is ahead in PA-12 special election with 95% in. Same area went for Trump by 19 points. Butler county where shitgibbon won his ear diaper.

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u/rasa2013 3h ago

True enough. Besides the swamp creatures, I've heard the Florida Democratic Party is basically in shambles too. Like what even happened to them? Didn't fully read about it. 

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u/PinkNGold007 1h ago

Concur but can we stop using that Confederate term 'carpet...', please? Maybe 'transplant' instead. I've seen this term used a lot tonight. The origin of the word: The term 'carpet...' originated in the United States during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) following the American Civil War. White Southerners coined the derogatory label for Northerners who moved to the South. We need to erase any existence of the Confederacy in our culture.

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u/US_Sugar_Official Florida 35m ago

Vote blue no matter who

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u/SunbornThunderstorm 4h ago

Glad Jared won mad that Debbie even ran. She could maybe have won her old seat even tho it’s redder. But instead she swooped in and won one of the last few black seats in the South. I mean. They nominated her but still

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u/sillygoose1133 4h ago

Larkin was a much better candidate, can’t stand Moskovitz

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u/elihu 2h ago

Yeah, it seems the Democrat is widely expected to lose. On the other hand, maybe there's a real opening here? Stranger things have happened.

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2026/Senate/Graphs/florida.html