It takes a certain kind of political nerve to run as a “proud” democratic socialist in South Florida.
A refuge for Cubans and Venezuelans whose families escaped socialist dictatorships, the place isn’t exactly teeming with DSA-curious Democrats, to put it mildly. “To actually pin the title socialist onto your name here, it’s telling me either you’re totally tone deaf, or you’re running to try to make a name for yourself, because the numbers do not warrant having a viable candidacy,” GOP Florida Rep. Alex Rizo told me on Monday, a day before Floridians cast ballots in this year’s Sunshine State primary elections. The region also has a large share of seniors and a sizable Jewish population—groups that tend to be wary of the current crop of anti-Israel socialist candidates.
Rizo and I were discussing the congressional candidacy of union organizer Oliver Larkin, the Democratic Socialists of America member who lost his House primary bid on Tuesday against pro-Israel moderate Rep. Jared Moskowitz by 27 points. The two were vying for the chance to fill a newly drawn South Florida congressional district, and the rout seemed to announce that the socialist wave sweeping primaries nationwide had hit a wall of resistance in Florida.
Yet that notion was dispelled by the surprise star of Tuesday’s Florida primaries. Three-term state representative Angie Nixon, another union organizer and recent DSA convert, came out of nowhere to win the Sunshine State’s Democratic Senate primary. Nixon trounced the establishment-backed Democratic front-runner Alexander Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel who became famous as a whistleblower during President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.
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