The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
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MS NOW tries to soften Angie Nixon’s cray-cray socialism for her — but she’s not having it

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BS BULLETIN

  • Democratic socialist Angie Nixon stunned Florida Democrats by beating Alex Vindman 56% to 44% despite being outspent roughly $16 million to $1 million.
  • Bernie Sanders has now endorsed Nixon, praising her grassroots upset as she heads toward a difficult November race against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody.
  • On MS NOW, Symone Sanders Townsend gave Nixon an opportunity to soften her DSA affiliation. Nixon instead made clear: She joined it deliberately.

Give Angie Nixon this much: she apparently has no interest in reading the little card Democratic consultants keep handing candidates that says, “Whatever you do, don’t say socialist in Florida.”

The Jacksonville state representative pulled off one of Tuesday night’s biggest primary shocks, crushing establishment favorite Alex Vindman for Florida’s Democratic U.S. Senate nomination despite entering the final stretch with a fraction of his money. Nixon won about 56% of the vote to Vindman’s 44%, after Vindman had raised more than $16 million while Nixon raised under $1 million.

Now comes the tricky part. She has to run statewide. In Florida. As a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

That reality appeared to be hovering over an interview Thursday when MS NOW’s Symone Sanders Townsend questioned Nixon about her DSA membership and seemed to offer the nominee plenty of room to explain that perhaps the label wasn’t quite what everybody thought it was.

Nixon wasn’t interested in the rescue operation. She explained that she had been organizing alongside DSA members and then made the decision to join the organization herself.

In other words: No misunderstanding. No accidental membership card slipped into the mail. No I attended one meeting because somebody told me there would be sandwiches.

She meant it. That could make for some interesting television between now and November because Nixon’s campaign platform is not exactly Bill Clinton’s triangulation strategy. Her agenda includes Medicare for All and a major expansion of government involvement in health care, child care and housing. Reporting on her campaign has also highlighted proposals for a $25 minimum wage, free child care, a national rent freeze and a billionaire tax.

Her campaign describes the philosophy this way: government should work for “working people” rather than corporations, billionaires or the political establishment. And Nixon’s progressive credentials just got another considerable boost.

Bernie Sanders endorsed her Thursday, celebrating her primary upset as evidence that grassroots organizing can defeat big money. Nixon supported Sanders during his 2016 presidential campaign and has embraced many of the same economic themes that made him the country’s most recognizable democratic socialist.

Republicans could hardly ask for a cleaner contrast.

Nixon now faces Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, the former Florida attorney general appointed to Marco Rubio’s Senate seat after Rubio became secretary of state. Moody easily won her own primary and enters the general election as the favorite.

A University of North Florida poll conducted before the primary had Moody leading Nixon 50% to 42%. Interestingly, Nixon actually performed slightly better against Moody than Vindman did in the same survey, which should temper any assumption that simply yelling “socialist!” automatically ends the race.

But Florida is also a state where the word carries unusual political baggage, particularly among Cuban, Venezuelan and other voters whose families have firsthand memories of socialist governments. Republicans have spent years making that argument, and Nixon is now handing them a nominee who openly embraces the democratic-socialist label.

Even the Wall Street Journal noted after her victory that while Nixon has distanced herself from some DSA positions — including defunding police — her affiliation is likely to become a major Republican line of attack in November.

The larger story may be what is happening inside the Democratic Party. Vindman was practically a mascot of the first Trump-era “Resistance,” becoming a liberal hero after his role in Trump’s first impeachment. Six years later, Democratic primary voters chose Nixon instead — a candidate whose appeal wasn’t I fought Trump, but rather the economic system itself needs radical change.

Axios describes Nixon’s victory as part of a broader pattern in which the old Resistance generation is being displaced by DSA-aligned candidates running considerably to its left.

So perhaps Symone Sanders understands the predicament better than anyone.

You can try to introduce Angie Nixon to general-election voters as a working mom, union organizer and small-business owner focused on affordability.

All of those things are true.

But eventually somebody is going to ask about the socialism.

And Angie Nixon appears perfectly happy to answer.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

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