Florida's new Democratic Senate nominee is running from the socialist label she earned by joining the DSA earlier this year, telling NBC News she is no socialist even as her policy record says otherwise.
Angie Nixon, a Florida state House member who won the Democratic primary on Tuesday by defeating Alex Vindman, sat for an NBC News interview and spent much of it trying to put daylight between herself and the organization she voluntarily joined. Republican Sen. Ashley Moody has reminded Florida voters that Nixon is a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and Nixon's on-air response amounted to attacking the messenger rather than answering the charge.
Nixon told the NBC News interviewer that Moody was not being truthful, offering a personal jab instead of a policy rebuttal:
"You know, when people's voice start getting squeaky and really high pitched, usually they're lying. And Ashley Moody knows that I'm not a socialist."
But Nixon is a member of the DSA. She joined the organization earlier this year. And the DSA's platform includes abolishing the U.S. Senate, defunding the Pentagon, lifting sanctions on Iran, and drafting an entirely new Constitution. Those are not fringe interpretations, they are the group's stated positions.
When pressed on why she joined, Nixon cited a handful of causes she said attracted her: housing, healthcare, veterans, and getting big money out of politics. She told NBC News she aligned with the DSA on those specific issues because Democratic Party leadership does not prioritize universal healthcare.
"Fighting for adequate public public housing, as well as fighting for quality healthcare, as well as making sure that we are getting our veterans off the street, taking big money out of politics."
That framing lets Nixon present the DSA as a kind of advocacy club focused on kitchen-table concerns. It leaves out the rest of the platform, the parts that call for dismantling core federal institutions.
Asked directly whether she supports abolishing the Senate, defunding the Pentagon, lifting sanctions on Iran, or drafting a new Constitution, Nixon denied supporting any of those positions. On the Pentagon budget, she offered a dodge dressed up as fiscal responsibility:
"I think we need to make sure that we are looking at the Department of Defense budget with a fine-tooth comb. They are the only agency or department that has failed an audit. And so I want to make sure that we're spending our money wisely."
She then added that she does not "believe in defunding anything" and wants to make sure the government is "spending money the right way." That is a far cry from the DSA's actual position, but it also raises an obvious question: if you disagree with the group on the Senate, the Pentagon, Iran sanctions, and the Constitution, what exactly did you join?
Nixon's stated policy positions go well beyond the modest reform language she used on NBC News. She has campaigned on abolishing ICE, funding universal healthcare, implementing universal childcare and pre-kindergarten, providing tuition-free public college and trade school through what she calls "cradle-to-career" public education, ending what she describes as "mass incarceration," and supporting a broad amnesty for illegal immigrants. Nixon's primary win over Vindman put a candidate with that platform one election away from the U.S. Senate.
That is not a centrist agenda dressed in progressive language. It is a wish list that tracks closely with the very organization Nixon now claims does not define her politics.
Nixon also called the Democratic Party a "big tent," telling NBC News it is "an everybody party" with "folks on the left, on the right, to the middle of the party." The description is generous. A party whose primary voters just chose a DSA member over a candidate like Vindman is not pitching a wide tent, it is moving the poles to the left.
The NBC News appearance is not the first time Nixon's public statements have drawn scrutiny. She previously declared that she cannot work with Republicans because, in her words, "they are literally trying to kill us." That is not the language of a coalition-builder or a big-tent moderate. It is the language of someone who views the opposing party as an existential physical threat, and it sits uncomfortably next to the unifying tone she tried to strike on NBC.
During the same interview, Nixon referred to President Donald Trump as a "34 count adjudicated rapist." The characterization is Nixon's own. She also alleged that Trump is against enforcing the current Constitution, a claim the reporting characterized as false.
Nixon's pattern is consistent: sharp, divisive rhetoric when speaking to sympathetic audiences, and softer, vaguer language when a general-election audience is watching. The DSA membership is the thread that ties the two versions together. She joined. She has not left. And the organization's platform has not changed.
Nixon's win is not an isolated event. DSA-backed candidates have been sweeping primaries across multiple states in the 2026 cycle, and the trend has alarmed even some Democrats. The far-left wing of the party is growing in size and confidence, with the Squad poised to expand its ranks after a string of primary victories.
Sen. John Fetterman, one of the few Democrats willing to break publicly with the party's progressive wing, has already criticized what he called the party's embrace of socialism after DSA candidates swept New York primaries. Fetterman's warning has not slowed the trend. If anything, primary voters have accelerated it.
Nixon fits the mold. She won her primary running on a platform that includes abolishing a federal law enforcement agency, granting mass amnesty, and providing a raft of taxpayer-funded universal programs, then immediately pivoted to reassuring general-election voters that the socialist label does not apply to her.
Sen. Moody, the Republican incumbent, has made Nixon's DSA membership a central line of attack. Nixon's response, questioning Moody's tone of voice rather than engaging on policy, suggests she does not have a comfortable answer. That is because the answer is straightforward: she joined the DSA, she holds positions that align with the DSA's platform on multiple fronts, and her public record includes rhetoric that goes further than most Democratic nominees would risk.
Nixon has also drawn attention for other statements on the campaign trail. She publicly called drag shows "wholesome" for children and said she brought her own kids to one, a position that places her well outside the mainstream on cultural issues that matter to Florida families.
The question for Florida voters is not complicated. Nixon joined the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA holds positions that include abolishing the Senate, defunding the military, lifting sanctions on a hostile foreign government, and rewriting the Constitution. Nixon says she disagrees with those specific planks, but she has not resigned her membership, and she holds a long list of policy positions that fall squarely in the DSA's ideological lane.
Telling NBC News that the Democratic Party is a "big tent" does not change what is printed on the membership card. And dismissing Moody's criticism by mocking her voice is not a policy argument, it is an evasion.
Voters can read a platform. They can match it against a candidate's record. And when the two line up as neatly as Nixon's record lines up with the DSA, no amount of careful television phrasing changes what is plainly in front of them.
