Angie Nixonshed her jacket, took the microphone and started her election night victory speech in Jacksonville with a one-word exclamation that was well-known to the jubilant supporters surrounding her.
"Duuuvalll!"
Nixon's upset winin the Democratic primary for Senate brought a wave of national attention to the state House member from Jacksonville. It also marks a rare feat for a Duval County politician. Even though Duval is home to one of the state's biggest cities, it had been 40 years since a Jacksonville politician won a statewide primary or general election.
On her way to the Democratic nomination, Nixon captured 80% of the vote in Duval County. She peppered her election night speech with tributes to her hometown.
"Y'all surprised me, Duval,"
she said about the high level of support before adding, "This city and the people in it have raised me. You have shaped me and guided me into who I am today."
She mixed in a "shout-out to Moncrief" that national viewers wouldn't have understood but local residents know as a northwest Jacksonville neighborhood.
Duval County once was a dominant force in state politics when it was the population center of Florida. From the early 1900s to the 1960s, candidates with ties to Jacksonville's political base who won statewide included Duncan Fletcher for U.S. Senate along with Napoleon Broward, John W. Martin, Fuller Warren, Haydon Burns andClaude Kirk for governor.
In the 1970s, Tom Adams was elected lieutenant governor and Jim Smith became attorney general.
More recently, Gov. Ron DeSantis was born in Jacksonville, but he grew up elsewhere in Florida and was a Flagler County resident wen he ran for governor in 2016. Val Demings, who won the Democratic Party nomination for Senate in 2022, was born and raised in Jacksonville but moved away from the city during her adult career in law enforcement and politics.
Jacksonville attorney Steve Pajcic won the Democratic Party primary in 1986 for governor, the last time before Nixon that a Jacksonville resident mounted a winning statewide campaign.
Duval County is "good training ground" for running statewide
Political consultant Steve Schale, who guided Barack Obama's campaigns in Florida when he won the state on his way to national victories for president, said Jacksonville office-holders such as former mayors John Delaney and Lenny Curryand the late congresswoman Tillie Fowler could have been competitive candidates if they had pursued statewide office.
He said if Mayor Donna Deegan wins re-election next year, she would be an attractive candidate for statewide office among Democrats. Deegan has said she has no plans to run for any other office.
"I think a lot of it is just a function of people making a decision that they're comfortable with where they are in their own politics," Schale said. "But I do think there have been a number of people involved in the Jacksonville political environment that had they chosen to run statewide would have been pretty competitive."
He said Nixon cut her political teeth learning the basic skills of organizing by "toiling on the avenues and boulevards of Duval" and it is a "good training ground for running statewide."
Nixon touched on that in her election night victory speech. She was born and grew up in Jacksonville where she graduated from Stanton College Preparatory School and earned a University of Florida political science degree in 2007. She returned to Jacksonville where she worked as a union organizer and won election to the state House of Representatives in 2020.
"Organize, organize, organize and you proved that without a shadow of a doubt, organized people beat big money every single day," she told her campaign workers.
Duval County vote helped power Angie Nixon to statewide win
Nixon, who traveled thousands of miles around Florida in her own van during the Senate primary race, won 49 of 67 counties while racking up 56% of the vote.
She was vastly outspent by opponent Alex Vindman but she had a profile outside Jacksonville from organizing a sit-in on the House floor in 2022 protesting a congressional redistricting plan that diminished Black voting power in North Florida. She did a one-woman sit-in this year in DeSantis's office objecting to a second round of redistricting by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
In Duval County, she won 55,027 votes compared to 13,549 for Vindman, the biggest margin of any county. Duval and Gadsden County, which has fewer voters, each gave 80% of their Democratic primary support to Nixon.
Nixon has never lost an election. But her races for state House were in Democrat-heavy districts and her primary win over Vindman was in a race among Democrats. She'll face U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody in a general election contest where Republicans outnumber Democrats in Florida.
In between gearing up for that campaign, Nixon said she plans to be at the Jaguars home preseason game on Aug. 21 where "Duuuvalll" will likely sound off from fans. The chant became popular at Jaguars games and is even spreading now to political coverage.
"I did Chuck Todd's show and he ended it with a good 'Duval' chant so that was a good sign," said Schale, an avid Jags fan.
Nixon said when New York City elected Zohran Mandami as mayor, the New York Knicks won the NBA championship.
"When they elect me to become the next United States senator, the Jaguars might win the Super Bowl," she told reporters after her election night speech. "I'm just saying."
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Angie Nixon's win puts 'Duuuvalll' in the political spotlight
