The Insurgent Left Faces Desantis’ Florida

MIAMI — A loss in Wisconsin’s governor’s race and close call in Michigan’s Senate contest showed the limits of the insurgent left in swing states.

Just wait til the movement tests its luck in Florida.

While results in the Midwest underscored progressives’ weak points outside urban hubs and among working-class voters, the Sunshine State presents a whole different case: Florida has a large swath of Latino voters and their family members who fled left-wing dictatorships and fear similar ideologies taking hold in the U.S. Because of that, the state Republican Party is eager to brand all Democrats as “socialists,” hoping to inject fear into a base that may otherwise be unmotivated to show up in November.

"The word 'socialism' triggers terrible memories for the vast majority of immigrants, exiles and refugees across the state of Florida and beyond because they associate it with everything they lost in their countries of origin, including the lives of loved ones," said Macarena Iglesias, president of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida.

Florida’s Tuesday primaries have a handful of progressives competing in them. But the country’s most prominent democratic socialists, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, haven’t gotten involved.

The most high-profile battle Tuesday will be the top-of-the-ticket Senate race, where retired Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, of Trump impeachment whistleblower fame, is competing for the Democratic nomination against state Rep. Angie Nixon, who recently joined the Democratic Socialist of America. Whoever wins the primary will go up against GOP Sen. Ashley Moody, a former state attorney general appointed to the Senate by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Nixon — a charismatic community organizer — has a commanding presence onstage. She made headlines during the rare mid-decade redistricting push in the Legislature this year, when, dressed in pink jumpsuit and carrying a pink megaphone, she bashed the new maps as illegal and unconstitutional on the state House floor. She insists the insurgent wave has a shot in Florida too, that “status quo, quiet, timid leaders” won’t beat Moody. If elected, she would be the first Black senator from Florida.

She has backing from progressives, including Democratic Reps. Maxwell Frost of Florida, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. She describes her platform as “actually not just really progressive, it's just centering people, hardworking people.” She also argued voters want to know they have a fighter in their corner.

“Republicans are not good adversaries,” she said. “That would mean they would be acting in good faith. They're doing things that are illegal, they're doing things that are unconstitutional, and Floridians want to know that there's going to be someone up there that fights back and tries to stop that from happening.”

But Nixon also faces criticism from Jewish lawmakers within her own party about antisemitism, having introduced a resolution in the state House that called for a “de-escalation and ceasefire in the state of Israel and occupied Palestine.” When a member of a county DSA chapter in Florida weighed in an internal Discord chat whether to endorse her — something they still haven’t done — the member called her “good on Palestine.” In the exchange, which was leaked to POLITICO, a member identified only as Maria expressed reservations that Nixon might not win the primary, but also presented the argument from others that bringing her in could help challenge the criticism that the group is too white and young.

In contrast, Vindman’s campaign has released ads highlighting aspects of his biography that include the fact that he was a child refugee whose family fled communism when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. He also this week publicized that he was voting alongside his father, who led his family to the U.S.

Not only has Vindman shied away from casting his candidacy as socialist in any way, he also pushes back on any suggestions that his bid is all about resisting President Donald Trump, at a time when many Democrats have acknowledged they’ll need to win over a large chunk of disaffected Republicans to have a shot at winning statewide. Despite his past involvement in Trump’s first impeachment trial, Vindman has argued in interviews that his record shows he’s willing to tackle corruption at all levels of government.

Vindman is ahead in fundraising, having surpassed $20 million, largely from small-dollar donors. Nixon, meanwhile, hasn’t scratched $1 million. But a poll from the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab found she might have a slightly more competitive race against Moody.

The state’s only DSA-endorsed candidate is Oliver Larkin, a first-time congressional candidate challenging Rep. Jared Moskowitz — a centrist Democrat who previously served as the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management in GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.

Larkin, who worked in New Hampshire for Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, launched his own bid the same day as Zohran Mamdani’s primary win in New York, having gathered enough signatures to qualify by petition. He has done a virtual fundraiser with far-left streamer Hasan Piker and New York Assemblymember Claire Valdez, who won a Democratic primary for Congress on a DSA platform.

“People are really struggling with the cost of living and affordability crisis,” Larkin said. “And I think the DSA platform is just not as scary when we see the authoritarianism of the Trump administration.”

Larkin held a “Chomp the Oligarchy” rally in Fort Lauderdale on Friday with Tlaib, Nixon and Elijah Manley, a progressive civil activist who says voters are “looking for outsider-type candidates” and is running in a crowded primary for a recarved, historically Black seat that Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is also vying for.

Because the seat Larkin is running for, in Florida’s 25th District, has been drawn to be more competitive for Republicans due mid-decade redistricting, it has drawn a crowded GOP field, with nearly $26 million already spent on the race, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. That’s the highest amount by far poured into any House race in Florida.

Moskowitz has surpassed Larkin’s fundraising, at $3 million to the $1 million the Larkin campaign reported Thursday. Moskowitz, who is Jewish, hasn’t engaged with Larkin in any forums or debates because of his positions on Israel. Larkin told the Miami Herald’s editorial board he supports ending U.S. aid to Israel and imposing an arms embargo on the country. The district they’re both running to represent is one-quarter Jewish, one-quarter Latino, and split about evenly between Republicans, Democrats and no-party affiliated voters.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried played down the insurgent trends seen nationally in an interview with reporters last month. “Florida is very unique,” she said, pointing to groups of people who fled left-wing authoritarian regimes across the state. “I trust our electorate that they're going to nominate people who are reflective of our communities here in our state.”

During the 2024 election cycle, Democrats began more aggressively pushing back when they were labeled “socialist” and tried instead to label Trump as an authoritarian. They still saw widespread defeat in that cycle. And it’s clear Florida Republicans are gearing up to use that same label against them again this year: During the Republican Party of Florida’s biggest gathering of the year this summer, nearly every speaker focused not on what their party had to offer, but rather warned about the dangers of far-left policies.

Of GOP anti-socialist rhetoric, Larkin said, “Bring it on,” noting Republicans would even call Moskowitz a socialist. (In fact, they have already described him as a “radical leftist” despite multiple instances of him reaching across the aisle.) Larkin raised the fact that the Trump administration has taken stakes in key sectors of the economy, including chipmaker Intel and minerals company MP Materials. “It just proves the fallacy of the Republican fearmongering about this,” he said.

But progressives do have good reason for thinking that their candidacies might energize the base, even in Florida. The last time the state came close to electing a Democratic governor was in 2018 with Andrew Gillum — an unapologetic progressive and then-rising star in the party who fell about 32,000 votes shy of defeating DeSantis. That same year was also the last time Democrats elected a candidate statewide: Fried, as agriculture commissioner. Yet Florida has only gotten redder since, with Republicans outregistering Democrats by 1.5 million people.

Evan Power, chair of the Republican Party of Florida, has asserted that there’s “no such thing as a moderate Democrat” — even about the Democratic frontrunner for governor, David Jolly, who’s a former GOP member of Congress. Jolly, too, is facing a challenge from the left in state Rep. Dotie Joseph, though she got into the race late — more than a year after Jolly had already been doing town halls across Florida. Still, there’s trepidation in the party about whether Jolly can invigorate an electorate in November that seems to be itching for disruption.

But for Republicans, the goal is to make Jolly appear as far-left as possible. The campaign for Rep. Byron Donalds, the GOP frontrunner for governor, has been running millions of dollars in ads that play TV clips of Jolly discussing support for transgender rights and started using “Pretty Far Left” in all its press releases criticizing him. The quote comes from an interview he did with The New York Times that described how he saw his policies to cap utility rate increases or set up a government-run property insurance fund.

In the Palm Beach County district where Mar-a-Lago is located, attorney Victoria Doyle is running a progressive campaign against Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel. Calling herself a “fighter and a truth teller,” she’s known for suing to try to stop Palm Beach County from proceeding with renaming its airport after Trump.

She is not a socialist, she stresses, but is instead focused on running as a "transformative change” candidate who’s refusing donations from corporate political action committees. One of her biggest areas of focus if elected, she said, would be for Congress to reverse the Supreme Court decision allowing unions and corporations to spend unlimited amounts on elections — a resolution Frankel has also supported.

“Democrats in general across the country are frustrated and disappointed in Congress,” Doyle said, “and they saw DOGE run roughshod over our government, and Congress did nothing.”