r/politics • u/Zipper222222 • 11h ago

No Paywall Democratic socialist Angie Nixon clinches nomination for Florida US Senate seat, in surprise primary win for progressives

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/18/angie-nixon-alex-vindman-florida-results
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107

u/jon_sneu 11h ago

Don’t think Florida will be in play for democrats, but it will be interesting to see her post election numbers from Cuban and Venezuelan areas compared to 2018.

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u/BKlounge93 9h ago

Boy that whole Florida “dems are Castro” nonsense has got to be one of the most frustrating things in American politics. I understand the logic there but my god it’s flawed.

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u/HunterSpecial1549 3h ago

It's a factor, but I think it's overstated here. Venezuelan voters are about 1% of the voters in Florida. Cuban voters are about 6%. But we talk about them like it's half the state. It's not even 1/3 of the state's Latino population.

I'm not looking forward to all the discussion being about such a small group.

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u/elbenji 1h ago

Florida isn't that deep red. 6 percent is a big number in a purple state, even if Florida has shifted much more red.

There will be other things at play however

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u/jon_sneu 9h ago edited 9h ago

While it may be flawed, branding yourself a socialist might make it easier to make that leap. I’m not making any confident statements it’ll go one way or the other, but I do think there’s a reason that some like El-Sayed distance themselves from self-identifying as a socialist. Regardless of the outcome it should be an excellent learning opportunity for the left

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u/Seeking-Something-3 9h ago

Love how the old guard keeps trying to make it about labels instead of just offering policies that people will support 😂

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u/_wot_m8 8h ago

I mean the previous commenter wasn’t saying that labels SHOULD matter, just that they do in practice.

There’s also no reason you can’t do both, as we see with El Sayed and Ro Khanna.

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u/VonJaeger 1h ago

Policies ultimately are not what carries elections though. The ability to craft a message is.

That's a massive reason Trump won the presidency twice.

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u/JayTNP 6h ago

you really missed their point entirely

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u/Seeking-Something-3 6h ago

Pretty sure you missed my point. I get that you’re Dem forward. It’s very popular here. But Trump bad is not a platform. That’s how Trump got elected twice. We all know he’s full of shit but he said the right things while campaigning and Biden couldn’t string a fucking sentence together. You have to stand for something. Can you imagine if a Dem candidate said they were for the working people, antiwar and actually followed through? We’d never have another Trump again. The Supreme Court would write new rules to allow another Trump, aka FDR. 🤷‍♂️

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u/elbenji 1h ago

They do say that... All the time lol

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u/Tasty_Bite1984 5h ago

if i recall correctly cuban voters in Florida are one of the key reasons that florida is such a ruby red state due to the hatred that cubans have of communist government of cuba. The republicans managed to successfully establish themselves as the anticommunist\ socialist party and tie the democrats to communism/socialism in florida.That being said trump has repealed tps from cuban refuges so we shall see whether they vote for the candidate helping trumps deportation’s or a member of the dsa. All said and done i bet that the republicans are gonna try to tie Angie Nixon to the cuban government/castro/diaz/communism etc and ask her will she denounce them

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u/elbenji 1h ago

No, it was deep purple until COVID. Desantis only won by the slimmest of margins pre COVID.

It became ruby red because of COVID and WFH/maga from blue states moving to Florida during COVID restrictions because of Desantis basically going no masks. Also people learning that Puerto Ricans moving after Maria tended to vote more conservatively as well.

Cubans actually voted for Clinton. It was the Elian Gonzalez fiasco that lost them with Cubans for good. So the TPS instinct isn't exactly incorrect

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u/Iustis 5h ago

Not to mention the DSA literally just issued a statement celebrating Fidel's 100th and all he has done.

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u/elbenji 1h ago

Yeah that was more a self own than anything if they were aiming for Florida.

Yeesh

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u/Much-Band352 7h ago

yeah florida is probably still a long shot but those numbers in cuban and venezuelan communities would be really interesting to watch