On August 18, when given the choice between Angie Nixon and Alex Vindman, a stiff, poll-tested moderate of the kind Democrats have been foisting upon Floridians for years, voters chose Nixon by a decisive 12-point margin. The result shocked national commentators. It was a testament to how poorly Vindman understood Florida — “He says he’s lived here for three years,” Nixon says, “but I had never heard of him” — that he failed to see what was obvious on the ground: Democratic voters were fed up with the status quo. Nixon, a dynamic 42-year-old Black single mother turned union organizer, has premised her Senate campaign on the idea that GOP rule in Florida has been a disaster. The Democrats’ go-to response over the past 30 years has largely been to run the most anodyne candidates they can find, only to watch the state become redder. Nixon has taken the opposite approach, seizing on a polarizing agenda of bigger government and universal programs that pundits long assumed would exclusively resonate in deep-blue states like New York. What makes Nixon different, according to people who know her, is that her public brawling is matched by her shrewdness and stamina as an organizer. “Angie won the Democratic primary because she has been knocking on doors, talking to people, alongside people, for decades,” says educator and writer Phillip Agnew. She is unafraid to talk to anyone. The public line is that she’s running to win this election, even if the polls say that result is unlikely. But no matter the outcome, she is providing a template for the kind of durable grassroots operation Democrats have neglected when running in Florida. Read Zak Cheney-Rice’s full profile of Nixon: nymag.visitlink.me/w1l5QC