Things Are Not Going Well With Florida Dems Right Now
Progressive policy ambitions meet practical realities as Americans weigh costs and consequences.
Alex Vindman had the money, the national profile, the war-room energy you'd expect from a guy who spent years being introduced on cable news as "the lieutenant colonel. " Angie Nixon had none of that, and she still beat him by twelve points. That's not a squeaker.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Angie Nixon had a great primary night on Tuesday. She raised very little in the grand scheme of things and took down favorite Alex Vindman, who had millions in the war chest. Nixon, a state representative and democratic socialist, is known for her meltdown on the state house floor over the new maps and for her arrest after staging a shoddy sit-in at Gov.
DeSantis’ office. She walloped Vindman 56 to 44.
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Alex Vindman had the money, the national profile, the war-room energy you'd expect from a guy who spent years being introduced on cable news as "the lieutenant colonel." Angie Nixon had none of that, and she still beat him by twelve points. That's not a squeaker. That's a party base telling its donor class exactly where it can put its spreadsheet.
What's funny, if you can call it that, is who won. This isn't some moderate insurgent knocking off an out-of-touch celebrity candidate. It's a democratic socialist who staged a sit-in in the governor's office and got herself arrested for it, beating a guy whose entire brand was being taken seriously by people who read the Atlantic. Florida Democrats didn't choose the safe bet. They chose the fight, and specifically a fight that looks a lot more like the party's activist wing than its consultant class would like to admit.
Vindman's people will tell you this was bad luck, low turnout, some fluke of primary math. Maybe. But money and media buzz usually paper over exactly this kind of gap, and here it didn't even come close. When your millions can't move a 56-44 result, that's not noise, that's a signal.
The lesson for Florida Democrats, if anyone there is in a mood to learn lessons after a cycle like this, is that their voters aren't asking for polish. They're asking for confrontation. Whether that's a winning message in November is an entirely different question, and one the state party's donors ought to be asking themselves right now, probably while writing smaller checks.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.