The rally filled the Cuban Club courtyard in Ybor City on Saturday, October 17 — doors at 11 a.m., music from Ted Leo, and the speaking program at 1 p.m. The Tampa Bay Times reported more than 2,000 people turned out. Sanders, 85, told the crowd that Nixon will be Florida's next senator.
Nixon introduced Sanders as her former boss and "one of the hardest working men in the US Senate," and laid out why she is running against Sen. Ashley Moody.
"I am tired of watching corrupt politicians like Ashley Moody get richer and richer while the rest of us who are working harder and harder only to just barely get by, if at all." — Angie Nixon
Sanders praised the primary upset that made her the nominee. Nixon beat Alex Vindman in August despite being outspent almost 16-to-1 — roughly $1 million raised against $16.3 million — with no establishment backing. "In her primary campaign Angie Nixon was outspent almost 16-1 and she still prevailed in one of the great upsets in modern political campaign history," Sanders wrote this week. He endorsed her last month, and his political committee has put $250,000 into her campaign.
Nixon, 42, a Jacksonville state representative, joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June and is believed to be the first DSA member ever nominated for statewide office in the country, though she says she does not agree with every part of its platform. Moody was appointed to the Senate seat and is defending it as the incumbent. Vice President JD Vance went after Nixon at a rally in Lakeland, saying she calls herself a socialist and adding: "Then get the hell out of here. You don't belong in America." Nixon answered him at a Tampa campus rally: "They don't want people here that either don't look like them or don't think like them, but I'm here to remind y'all that this is our country too."
Republicans in Tampa were not pleased to see the Cuban Club — founded for Cuban-Americans, in a city with one of the largest Cuban refugee populations in the country — host the event. "It is beyond disgusting that the Cuban Club in Tampa is hosting socialists Bernie Sanders & Angie Nixon," said Dan Weldon, a Republican running for the state House in District 64. "Shame on the Cuban Club for allowing this." Moody is drawing Washington support of her own: Senate Majority Leader John Thune campaigns with her this week.
Tampa was one of four Florida stops for Sanders and Nixon this weekend — Melbourne later on Saturday, then Gainesville and Tallahassee on Sunday — with Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Ro Khanna also coming to Florida to campaign beside her. Sanders calls this "the most important mid-term election in modern American history," and he is not hedging on his candidate: "Needless to say, I intend to do all that I can to help."
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