Democratic Jacksonville state Rep. Angie Nixon launches U.S. Senate run
Jacksonville-area state Rep. Angie Nixon is joining the race for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Marco Rubio, hoping her focus on low-income, working families will change the dynamic in a race stacked against Democrats.
The longtime community organizer, Democrat and former executive director of the progressive coalition Florida for All said the campaign she wants to run is meant for the Floridians left on the margins, regardless of political party.
“This is not about being a Democrat,” Nixon said. “This is actually about just being someone who is a champion for working families. And that is what I care about most. I don’t care about politics or party or profits.”
Any Democrat in the race is facing a steep uphill battle, as registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in the state by 1.5 million voters. But for a progressive candidate like Nixon who’s taken a stand against both the Republican and Democratic establishment — including a 2023 Gaza ceasefire bill shot down by almost all her colleagues — that hurdle is likely even higher.
“I was a single mom once upon a time. I come from movement. I’m a community organizer. And community organizers don’t oftentimes, especially in the state of Florida, actually win elections,” Nixon said. “It does seem like an insurmountable feat, but I plan to accomplish it. I plan to win. They are beatable.”
Her supporters say an anti-corporate campaign focused on the working class is the most viable alternative to Florida’s entrenched Republican establishment, rather than a centrist Democrat.
Florida Democrats “specialize in running this Republican-lite or former Republican politicians as their candidates,” Miami activist Thomas Kennedy said. “And quite frankly, the results bear out for themselves, it hasn’t worked out for them.”
He compared Nixon’s Senate candidacy to Andrew Gillum’s 2018 gubernatorial run, pointing to his populist messaging. Gillum came within one percentage point of beating Gov. Ron DeSantis, also during the midterms of a Donald Trump administration.
Democratic election wins elsewhere in the country and in Miami last year have signaled backlash to Trump and given Florida Democrats some hope for a comeback. But Florida of 2026 is still very different from Florida of 2018.
Republican rule has only gotten stronger. Democrats haven’t won a statewide race in almost seven years. And there’s no heated Republican primary on the horizon to put pressure on incumbent and Trump-endorsed Sen. Ashley Moody.
DeSantis picked Moody, the former Florida attorney general, to replace Rubio after Trump tapped him for Secretary of State. She won her race for attorney general with 60% of the vote in 2022.
In the Democratic primary, Nixon will be running against Hector Mujica and Jenkins, who’ve been campaigning since last year.
Mujica is a Broward County candidate who previously worked for Google’s philanthropy arm and would be the first Venezuelan-American senator.
Jenkins is a former Brevard County School Board member who defeated a Moms for Liberty cofounder for the seat and later formed a political committee focused on school board races.
For Nixon and her supporters, the race is winnable despite the odds. But they also acknowledge there is a movement-building component to her campaign — ensuring the working families she’s focused on are part of the campaign conversation in the midterms.
“It’s important that people are talking about the things that she’s talking about,” former Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chairman Robert Dempster said. “That we’re at least having those discussions and those conversations at the statewide level.”
Nixon is a mother of five and says both her own life and the recent stories she’s heard on her “Awake the State” listening tour, including in Miami in November, have helped inform her priorities.
Those all center around affordability — including fighting for education, “quality, affordable healthcare,” and to “push back against all these corporations that are buying up” single-family homes.
“For someone who’s been in these activist spaces and been a credible voice in the community for as long as she has, she’s able to say, ‘I’ve been talking about this for 10 years, not just one year.’ I think people are looking for that, looking for that authenticity.” said Jimmy Peluso, a Jacksonville city councilman who’s worked closely with Nixon and is endorsing her candidacy for Senate.
Now, after six years as an outspoken critic in the Republican-dominated Florida Capitol, she said she’s ready to take the fight statewide.
“I really care about my state. I love my state,” Nixon said. “And I think it’s time to really fight for Florida’s future, and I am a known fighter.”
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