{"id":430912,"date":"2026-10-18T02:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T02:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/430912\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T02:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T02:22:07","slug":"bernie-sanders-visits-florida-to-campaign-with-angie-nixon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/430912\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders Visits Florida to Campaign With Angie Nixon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senator Bernie Sanders looked out over the soggy crowd gathered under the persistent rain on Saturday afternoon and recognized just how unusual it was that they were all there \u2014 campaigning in Florida, just 17 days before the midterm elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told that Florida is a red state,\u201d he told the cheering mass of ponchos and umbrellas in Tampa. \u201cWell, from here, that doesn\u2019t look like that\u2019s the case!\u201d<\/p>\n

With a fellow progressive, Angie Nixon, on the Senate ballot, Mr. Sanders made a rare return to Florida, a state that did not much warm to him when he ran for president in 2016 and 2020. The state was still a battleground then and has since become only more Republican.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Sanders, an independent from Vermont, and other progressives<\/a> have found voters even in red states sounding more receptive of their message about taking money out of politics and getting the economy to work for working people.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody thought that Angie could win the primary,\u201d Mr. Sanders said at the rally on Saturday in Tampa\u2019s historic Ybor City district. \u201cPeople think she can\u2019t win the general election. Let me tell you, they\u2019re wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, drew rebukes from Cuban Americans and other Hispanics, including Democrats, during his presidential runs for praising aspects of Cuba\u2019s Communist government. Mr. Sanders is notably not visiting South Florida, the heart of the state\u2019s Cuban exile community, in his two-day swing through the state.<\/p>\n

But Ms. Nixon\u2019s surprise grass-roots win<\/a> in the Democratic primary in August over Alex Vindman, an establishment candidate who had raised far more campaign money than her, jolted Florida politics and seemed to excite Democrats after several sleepy elections. Organizers said the Tampa rally on Saturday drew more than 2,000 people.<\/p>\n

Mr. Sanders has made a point to invest in Republican-leaning states, arguing that his populist economic message appeals across partisan lines. Ms. Nixon worked as the deputy field director for national Black outreach for Mr. Sanders\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are tired,\u201d Ms. Nixon told the crowd, many of them dressed in her campaign\u2019s signature pink. \u201cWe\u2019re tired of the corruption. We are tired of working harder and having less to show for it. We\u2019re tired of going to the grocery store and spending $100 just to walk out with only two bags of groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans remain favored in Florida this year, though some polls have suggested closer-than-expected races for Senate and governor. President Trump is scheduled to rally in Fort Myers on Friday, a signal that he wants to make sure MAGA voters turn out for the Republican ticket.<\/p>\n

Ms. Nixon\u2019s opponent, Senator Ashley Moody, a Republican, was appointed to the seat last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis, and has run a quieter, more restrained campaign than Ms. Nixon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am running against a self-proclaimed card-carrying socialist,\u201d Ms. Moody, the state\u2019s former attorney general, told supporters in South Florida on Friday, casting Ms. Nixon as too far left to represent the state. \u201cCan you imagine if she is elected?\u201d she added. \u201cShe would be the most radical, extreme senator to ever set foot on the Senate floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Ms. Nixon blasted Ms. Moody for declining to debate her and directly addressed the senator\u2019s characterizing her as \u201cradical.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf believing that a mother working two jobs should earn enough to put food on the table is radical, then call me radical,\u201d Ms. Nixon began, saying her positions amounted to nothing more than \u201cdecency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Nixon identifies as a progressive but also joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June. She is betting that the way for Democrats to claw their way back to relevance in Republican-leaning Florida is by running not as a moderate but as a progressive.<\/p>\n

It is a risky approach: The last Florida Democrat to run statewide as a progressive was Andrew Gillum, who narrowly lost the 2018 governor\u2019s race. Mr. Sanders campaigned for him, too.<\/p>\n

Back then, national Democrats were still investing in Florida, an expensive state to campaign in. The party has largely abandoned the state as the Republicans have become much more dominant; G.O.P. voters in the state now outnumber Democratic ones by about 1.5 million. Mr. Trump won Florida by 13 percentage points in 2024.<\/p>\n

In a brief interview before the rally, Ms. Nixon said Mr. Sanders called her after the upset primary victory and asked how he could help. \u201cI said, \u2018You can come down, you can help me raise money and you can help me win,\u2019\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Mr. Sanders was pilloried in a Democratic presidential debate for complimenting Cuban literacy programs enacted by Fidel Castro during an appearance on the news program \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d (He also denounced authoritarianism.)<\/p>\n

Polls suggest that some of his signature issues, including single-payer health care, have grown only more popular \u2014 both in Florida and nationwide \u2014 since he ran for president.<\/p>\n

And with the cost of living in Florida<\/a> rising, Mr. Sanders and Ms. Nixon could have an opening to appeal to working-class Floridians who swung toward Mr. Trump and other Republicans in recent elections. Mr. Sanders and Ms. Nixon were also scheduled on Saturday to visit Melbourne, a city on Florida\u2019s Atlantic Coast that leans Republican.<\/p>\n

Chris Dell\u2019Aquila, 38, an insurance adjuster from nearby Riverview, Fla., said at the Tampa rally that he was an independent voter who supported the single-payer health care system Medicare for All \u2014 especially as a recent thyroid cancer survivor. \u201cJust seeing the expenses that have come from that and how easy it was to rack up,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Dell\u2019Aquila said he planned to vote for Ms. Nixon and \u201canyone else that\u2019s not MAGA associated.\u201d But he acknowledged that Mr. Sanders \u201cdoesn\u2019t fare too well\u201d in Florida, citing a friend who is \u201cdead set\u201d against single-payer health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a lot of Floridians have that same kind of mentality,\u201d Mr. Dell\u2019Aquila said. \u201cThey don\u2019t really accept the socialism aspects of it and don\u2019t want to pay more taxes to help other people, even though they\u2019re probably going to be better off themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Mr. Sanders and Ms. Nixon are scheduled to travel to Gainesville, home to the University of Florida, and to Tallahassee, the city of Florida State University, to motivate young people to volunteer for Ms. Nixon\u2019s campaign and vote. In-person early voting begins on Monday in some Florida counties.<\/p>\n

Ms. Nixon said in the interview that she was hoping Mr. Sanders would draw out younger people \u201cwho have felt disenfranchised and left behind by some of the more establishment candidates,\u201d as well as \u201cpeople who are frustrated with having to choose between whether or not they put food on the table or put gas in their car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Sanders speaks to working families, Ms. Nixon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you work hard,\u201d she said, \u201cyou should be able to afford to live in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senator Bernie Sanders looked out over the soggy crowd gathered under the persistent rain on Saturday afternoon and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[169183,169184,169182,113439,2715,28,30,29,110875,54908,35436,34433,4214,2684],"class_list":["post-430912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-angela-1984","tag-ashley-brooke","tag-bernard","tag-donald-j","tag-elections","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-moody","tag-nixon","tag-sanders","tag-senate","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}