State Rep. Angie Nixon is everywhere, everything all at once.
A few days after her Aug. 18 Democratic primary upset of Lt. Col. Alex Vindman for U.S. Senate, it was hard to miss Nixon. She seemed to hit every news show, national and local, often being interviewed from her car. On social media, she is relentless, posting videos such as her fixing a flat tire en route to campaign event. She also addressed church congregations, resuming her shoe-leather campaign now focused on unseating Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody.
“The people were so excited because a lot of the issues she wants to tackle are what people who go to church face, like everyday pocket issues, the cost of food, the cost of gas, the cost of healthcare,” said Rev. Willie Barnes Jr.,
senior pastor of Saint Paul A.M.E. Church, where Nixon spoke on Aug. 23.
Nixon’s meteoric rise didn’t happen by accident. A Jacksonville native, Nixon forged her political career in union meeting halls, churches, the bookstore she owns and the Black marketplace she co-founded.
Nixon saw her mother beaten by her father when she was a child and resolved that she wasn’t going to lay down for anybody or leave behind anyone in need.
“I don’t like bullies. I think that’s one of the reasons I’m such a fighter,” she told the USA TODAY Network-Florida in a wide-ranging interview.
Nixon won her first state House race in 2020 while pregnant and battling COVID-19.
“That experience informed who I am now because I thought I was going to die,” she said. “Just the failure of the state with Ron DeSantis opening up the state again, and knowing how negatively that pandemic impacted people’s lives.”
She defeated a fellow Black Democrat, Kimberly Daniels, a Jacksonville pastor who went viral for thanking God for slavery and said, “You can talk about the Holocaust, but the Jews own everything.”
Those who know Nixon say, without fail, they are amazed by her stamina — as a community organizer, a worker bee for the SEIU, and a tell-it-like-it-is lawmaker.
Eric Brakken, a longtime friend and campaign adviser, said, “Everyone tells her, ‘You’re going to burn out. You’re doing too much, but she’s just wired to do everything she can to try to push things forward, even in the darkest moments.”
“She has always been this fireball of energy,” added Bryson Morgan, a Jacksonville City Council candidate who has known Nixon for nearly a decade.
Nixon took to the House floor with a bullhorn to protest the GOP’s redistricting in April and ended up being arrested after staging a multi-hour sit-in outside DeSantis’ office. “I’ve never been in handcuffs before,” said Nixon, a mother of five.
“Angie is such a bold and courageous leader,” former state Rep. Tarvaris McCurdy, who served with Nixon, said. “She is genuinely a fighter for the people, for those who don’t think they have a voice or are afraid to speak up.”
Angie Nixon’s Senate primary upset turned her into a national figure
While her bullhorn garnered headlines, few envisioned the media frenzy that followed Nixon’s victory in the primary over Vindman, who outspent her 16-to-1 but garnered only 44% of the vote to Nixon’s 56%. “I was a single mama for 12 years. I know how to make a dollar stretch,” she said.
Suddenly, Nixon was indeed everywhere, displaying her down-home moxie for news hits on CNN, MSNBC, CBS and local Sunday programs — sometimes from her car. The New York Times did an extensive story just on Nixon’s signature fuchsia attire, calling it“the power of pink.” It is the color of Nixon’s campaign bus and her campaign signs, as well.
Nixon became a bona fide political phenomenon, while Moody ran from reporters' questions at her recent event.
With few exceptions, television news hosts peppered Nixon with questions about why she joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June. “They are trying to catch me up,” she said.
CBS host Gayle King tied Nixon with progressive online provocateur Hasan Piker, claiming she campaigned with him. Nixon told her she had never met Piker while King feigned indignation.
“I’m not a twitcher. I got kids. I’m running for office. I own a bookstore. I’m an elected official. I know nothing about streamers and all that stuff,” Nixon said.
What is Angie Nixon's viewpoint on the Democratic Socialists of America platform?
Nixon said she was disappointed not just with King, but with the media’s obsession about her DSA affiliation. “It’s not just lazy sticking with the same subject. It’s lazy not doing the research."
Nixon has said ad nauseum that she joined the DSA to expand her coalition and that she doesn’t agree with all of its agenda.
"Socialism in New York means access to universal healthcare; socialism to Elon Musk means he has the opportunity to get billions of dollars in subsidies from our government and then call it capitalism, right?" she told Fort Lauderdale news station WPLG in one of Nixon’s many social media moments this August.
Nixon said the Democrats need all of their many factions to come together, including the DSA, to fight President Donald Trump and the Republicans who have controlled Florida government for three decades.
"That means that we are a big tent, and everybody is welcome. And that means there are people from the left and to the right that are tired of Washington, D.C. being broken,” she said.
GOP says Angie Nixon's victory shows 'radical leftists' have taken over Democratic party
The GOP has seized on Nixon’s victory as proof that “radical leftists” have taken over the Democratic Party.
Moody tells voters Nixon wants to defund the police and military and open up the border so non-citizens can vote. When Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds mentioned Nixon in Miami on Tuesday, Aug. 26, the mostly Cuban-American crowd booed.
Now the GOP is even slamming Nixon on her driving record from more than a decade ago.
"In the state of Florida which stood strong in the face of big government, you have now a Democratic party that has put up as their nominee a self-proclaimed socialist who runs a bookstore called Resistance Cafe. I am not making this up," Moody said on primary election night.
“They just think I’m this insurgent outside candidate, but I’ve done the work,” Nixon said. “I was vice chair of the Democratic Party (in Duval County.) I was a field director and political director for the Florida Democratic Party.”
Nixon has called on Moody to resign for approving the diversion of $10 million in taxpayer money earmarked for poor children’s health to Hope Florida, a charity founded by Florida’s first lady, Casey DeSantis. Moody says she did nothing wrong.
The movement Nixon built began in a bookstore, a marketplace and her neighborhood
The beating heart of Nixon’s campaign, one could argue, can be found in herCafe Resistance Bookstore & Coffee Shop, where Nixon held a campaign stop Wednesday, Aug. 26.
Nixon opened the bookstore near the neighborhood she grew up in to counter the DeSantis’ administration’s bans on Black history and LGBTQ literature in public schools.
“How can I tell people to invest in the community if I’m not willing to invest in it myself?” said Nixon, whose previous business was a Jacksonville candy and ice cream shop.
The neighborhood is located in a food desert, so the bookstore offers healthy options. It is a space for workshops for people suffering from mental health issues.
“It’s a great asset to have in the community because of the banning of books,” said Jacksonville community advocate Dawn Curling. “It allows individuals to be able to still go in and purchase books that reflect life on the Black side.”
Nixon and Curling co-founded The Jax Melanin Market in 2017, a spontaneous sidewalk event that showcases Black businesses that might otherwise lack retail space.
“It brings our community together in prosperity and economic activity,” Curling said. “It brings economic activity to a corridor that has been disinvested in for over 60 years.”
Before coming into office, the candidate also co-authored the children’s comic book The Adventures of Moxie McGriff with her 7-year-old daughter, Natalie McGriff. The protagonist discovers her afro puffs grant her superpowers to fight back against hungry monsters eating Jacksonville Public Libraries.
“My daughter didn’t like her hair,” Nixon said. “I wanted her to be strong, and I wanted her to love who she was. I wanted her to know that her insecurities were actually her superpowers.”
The comic book is available at Cafe Resistance.
“We are located two minutes away from my first job, three minutes away from the first home that I purchased, four minutes away from the Moncrief neighborhood I grew up in,” Nixon said. “It’s like a full circle.”
What Angie Nixon says she learned from union organizing
Growing up in Jacksonville’s northside community, Nixon spent her early years at the James Weldon Johnson Branch YMCA, where she learned the importance of volunteerism. At age 15, she took her first job at Charles “Boobie” Clark Pool as a lifeguard.
At Stanton College Preparatory School, Nixon played on the girls' basketball and track teams and even served as the school’s mascot.
Nixon is a Gator, graduating from the University of Florida with a degree in political science. She started as a teen coordinator at MaliVai Washington Kids Foundation and dove into community work, representing her neighborhood on city committees. Nixon's launched her first campaign in 2008 when she unsuccessfully ran for Jacksonville City Council.
She served as a legislative aide to state Rep. Mia Jones, who represented Florida's 14th House district.
Nixon also served as state field director for SEIU (Service Employees International Union) before being elected to office, working to increase the state’s minimum wage and other union legislative goals.
“She works behind the scenes. She gets shit done. She’s not somebody who will stand in front of a room when she can go knock on doors,” Morgan said.
Afifa Khaliq is president of SEIU, Florida Public Services Union, and was Nixon’s supervisor. What Nixon saw as a union field director led her to run for state office in 2020. “The direction of her life is guided by the conversations that she was having on the streets,” she said.
Joseph Maceo George, former president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, has known Nixon for 20 years. “We always had rallies. We had boycotts. We have had protests at City Hall,” he said.
Nixon’s mentor was Alphonso Mayfield, president of SEIU Florida Public Services Union. He died in January at age 46 but not before helping map out her strategy to run for U.S. Senate.
“I have questioned myself at times. I felt I was not smart enough, not that strategic, not talented enough,” Nixon said. “He helped me realize that I am a leader. I’m working to make him proud.”
Defeating Kimberly Daniels, who made anti-Semitic remarks, became Angie Nixon's breakthrough moment
Nixon's race for State House District 14 got a boost when an edited video of her opponent, Kim Daniels, making anti-Semitic statements and downplaying slavery went public.
“It was some of the things that Kimberly Daniels was saying, but it was also a lack of accessibility. She did not necessarily talk to people," Nixon said.
Suddenly, Nixon had not only local support but also national and statewide support from Democratic groups that usually do not weigh in on primaries.
“She saw a need to get Kim Daniels out of there, and of course then the Republican Party moved her to another district,” said Margie Stein, founder of Naples-based Blue-Florida.com'sProject 140.
Democratic activist Dr. Fergie Reid Jr., of Virginia-based 90-for-90 said Nixon is unfairly vilified for saying U.S. aid should end to Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Israel for its military actions in Gaza.
"The convenient mainstream media narrative is that Angie Nixon is some kind of anti-Israel DSA radical when the truth is that in 2020, she was the only Florida Democrat who took it upon herself to push back on a Florida elected official's racist anti-Semitism," Reid said.
With redistricting, Nixon now represents District 13. Daniels, who did not respond to a request to comment, is back in District 14.
Faith, fieldwork and coalition-building remain at the center of Angie Nixon's strategy
When Nixon ran for U.S. Senate, she relied on union networking skills to knock on doors and meet Black voters in churches, while Vindman used his war chest on campaign ads and social media.
“She used the exact turnout mechanism that former (Democrat gubernatorial candidate) Andrew Gillum successfully used when he had six very strong Democrats running against him,” said political analyst Susan MacManus. “He worked all the Black churches, walked the Black communities, went to college campuses.”
Nixon is a lifelong member of Jacksonville’s Philippian Community Church. “I would be totally lost without my faith,” she said. “The Black church helped me get to where I am. The Black church led the civil rights movement. The Black church was the resistance.”
Brown said, “The Black church has always been what I consider to be the moral consciousness of the United States.”
State Democrats didn’t know what to do with Nixon when she upset Vindman. Nixon and State Party Chair Nikki Fried had a terse exchange regarding her affiliation with DSA, with Nixon accusing Fried of gaslighting her, according to Axios.
Nixon said she and Fried are now on the same page.
“It’s like sisters. I’m the Black progressive sister. She’s the white moderate sister. We butt heads every now and then, but we still love the family,” Nixon said.
Political analysts have said that Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly and Nixon pulled from different constituencies within the party and can help each other in November’s general election. Jolly has embraced Nixon even though Republicans are now painting him as socialist.
“She’s a warrior. We're trying to address the people’s urgency around the economy,” Jolly said. “There are a lot of areas where we agree. In others, we won’t agree. It’s OK if we disagree. We’ll get there."
If she succeeds against Moody, Nixon would become the first Black person elected to the U.S. Senate from Florida.
Nixon is in a win-win situation where, even if she loses, she can lead Florida Democrats and mobilize them, said Reid, comparing her to Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia state representative who became the first Black woman in the United States to win a major party’s nomination for governor.
“If Angie is Senator within that paradigm in the Democratic majority, that’d be beautiful,” Reid said. “However, if Angie is the next chair of the Florida Democratic Party, that would change national politics even more.”
USA Today Network-Florida reporter Curt Anderson contributed to this report.
John Pacenti is the Government Impact Reporter for The USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, athttps://palmbeachpost.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: How Angie Nixon turned grassroots activism into a political phenomenon
