Florida Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon took a personal swipe at Vice President JD Vance this weekend, mocking his appearance and invoking her ancestry during a get-out-the-vote rally in Tallahassee alongside socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
The Democratic Socialists of America member, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Ashley Moody in the Nov. 3 general election, derided Vance over what she called “his eyeliner” and told the crowd that her ancestors were the ones who built the buildings Vance walks through, according to Breitbart.
“They nasty. They lying. The truth ain’t in them,” Nixon said during the rally, per Breitbart. “They push back on the truth with lies. We need to push back on lies with the truth.”
The jab came in response to remarks Vance made on the campaign trail in Lakeland, Florida, where he told supporters that a self-described socialist running for statewide office should leave the country if she holds those views.
“Look no further than Angie Nixon, the self-described — it’s almost too easy to make fun of her — the self-described socialist that the Democrats put up against Ashley Moody this fall,” Vance said, according to Breitbart. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, when Angie Nixon calls herself a socialist, I think the right response is to say, then get the hell out of here. You don’t belong in America if those are your views.”
The vice president’s remark drew applause and was circulated widely online, including in a post from the account @Acyn on X that quoted Vance directly: “Vance: When Angie Nixon calls herself a socialist, I think the right response is to say, then get the hell out of here. You don’t belong in America.”
Nixon, 42, joined the Democratic Socialists of America this summer during the primary, according to reporting from POLITICO. She has since made the label central to her campaign, appearing alongside Sanders at stops in Melbourne, Tampa, Gainesville and Tallahassee over the weekend.
Sanders used the rallies to push back on the barrage of attack ads funded by state Republican committees and Moody’s campaign, which POLITICO reports has spent more than $3.4 million on television and digital spots framing the race as “freedom versus socialism.”
“Why is it that when you turn on your TV screen, you see ugly ads against her hour after hour after hour? Why are the billionaires afraid of Angie Nixon?” Sanders asked the crowd outside the University of Florida, per POLITICO. “The answer is she has the guts to take them on.”
Nixon framed the attacks as disinformation and urged supporters to push back. “They’ve been running a whole lot of negative ads on your girl, just lying, just lying. And so I want you all to know that I need y’all to push back on that disinformation,” she said.
Her candidacy has drawn national attention as Democrats try to reclaim a Senate seat they have not held since 2019 in a state that has trended heavily Republican. If elected, Nixon would become Florida’s first Black senator. The 19th reports that her primary win in August, following a viral one-woman protest on the Florida House floor against a gerrymandering session, elevated her to the face of the state party’s fortunes.
The race has become a test case for how openly socialist candidates fare in a general election, and Vance has made clear he intends to make Nixon’s affiliation a liability. Nixon’s response — mocking the vice president’s appearance and asserting ancestral grievance — is a strategy her campaign has not shied away from in the final weeks.
Moody, meanwhile, has kept her message focused on the socialist label, and her ad spending suggests Republicans see the race as winnable by tying Nixon to the national party’s left flank.
Our Take
Angie Nixon wants Florida voters to believe she is the victim of billionaire-funded smear merchants. But nobody put the word “socialist” in her mouth — she joined the DSA herself this summer, stood shoulder to shoulder with Bernie Sanders, and is now running on a platform that would fundamentally remake the country her ancestors helped build.
And there is the irony. Nixon sneers that her ancestors built this thing while demanding a brand of politics that has starved, impoverished and killed millions in every country it has touched. The people who fled Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to Florida know exactly what socialism does. Vance was speaking to them when he said what he said, and he was right.
Mocking the vice president’s eyeliner is not an argument. It is a distraction from the fact that Nixon has no answer for the 3.4 million dollars Moody has spent telling Floridians the truth about her record. If Nixon wants to be Florida’s first Black senator, she will have to do more than insult the man who called her out. She will have to explain to voters why the system she praises has failed everywhere it has been tried.
Floridians head to the polls Nov. 3. They will decide whether the Sunshine State sends a socialist to Washington or keeps the seat in the hands of those who understand that America — for all its faults — is not the problem.
