Susan MacManus says Angie Nixon's Senate primary win was no surprise

Former USF political scientist Susan MacManus wasn't as surprised as some people about Angie Nixon's upset win over Alexander Vindman in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary.

MacManus says women propelled her campaign, and she believes Nixon has a decent chance in the fall against incumbent Republican Ashley Moody.

WUSF: A lot of people were stunned by Angie Nixon winning by such a large margin. What was your reaction when you heard the news about her winning so big?

MacMANUS: I wasn't really surprised. I was surprised at the magnitude, but I knew that she was going to do well for a lot of different reasons. First of all, she's well known within Democratic circles, a state legislator, circulated across the state, various committee and county meetings, and so forth. And she simply outworked him under the under his radar.

The bottom line is a lot of people were very annoyed when he made light of her candidacy. From the get-go, Vindman had all the money, jumped into the race with a splash, immediately jumped over the primary and went straight for the general election, aiming at (incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley) Moody in a way that was insulting to a lot of Democrats, and particularly when she started getting a lot of traction locally. And she was smart in a way. She was very much reflective of (Andrew) Gillum's campaign years ago when he won the Democratic nomination with a lot of other well-known Democrats in the race, but he went to targeted areas where he knew he could ramp up support. She has done exactly the same thing.

But I think Vindman's biggest mistake was in a way insulting her. And let's face it, 63% of Florida's registered Democrats are women, and they tend to be women who support other women in candidacies. So I was not surprised because I knew that grassroots politics still works, and Nixon was getting out people to the polls that probably wouldn't have gone if it hadn't been her personally contacting and mingling. And then I think the third factor was him just misreading the whole situation of a primary.

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The mainline Democrats were pushing Vindman as probably what they believed was a stronger candidate in the general election. With Nixon there, that kind of mixes things up. You have a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist on one side, and on the governor's race for the Democrats, you have a former Republican, David Jolly, running. Do you think these two can maybe complement each other somehow in getting out the vote, or maybe you're going to have a lot of split votes on the ballot?

Well, they can certainly. I don't think you'll see a lot of split votes, particularly among Democrats. But it certainly makes it more difficult because the opponents are clearly going to make the socialism label stick to every other Democrat in the state, but particularly Jolly, as well as they can. And so, it is interesting because she does bring an unusually strong ability to get out the young vote that is currently registered as no party affiliation. That she brings to the party that they would not have had, and we well know that Democrats cannot win statewide races without holding onto their whole base, and obviously then trying to reach heavily into the no party affiliation and minor party folks who make up now nearly a third of the electorate. So she brings that ability to energize that base that they need.

On the other hand, she somewhat alienates some others that might have voted for the Democratic ticket, but once the socialism label is placed on all of them, it makes it possible that her candidacy loses some of that vote. So it's very interesting.

ALSO READ: Democratic socialist Angie Nixon won Tuesday's primary in Florida. Can she win in November?

I'd like to swivel down to South Florida. You have a lot of refugees from socialism there-Venezuela, Cuba. How do you think her candidacy is going to play out in these communities?

I think it's going to be a problem. How big a problem, we don't know, but it will be a problem. There are very strong feelings. You mentioned that word, and it energizes people, and it's probably even more of a problem in light of the national attention to socialism, socialist candidate’s victories in other parts of the country.

As you know, there's a big struggle within the Democratic Party right now for the “soul” of the party, right? How do you believe this changes the dynamics of the Democratic Party, maybe larger than just in Florida? Do you think it gives credence to the belief that the party should swivel to the left, should talk about more affordability issues that maybe the more establishment candidates have not, and will this energize the base more, maybe nationally?

I don't know, but we do know that Florida impacts national politics without question. I mean, as soon as she won, the whole national structure of journalists and media was right on Florida once again. As to the internal politics and the direction, it's a little bit too soon to tell because we had mixed results. We had places where, for example, DSA, you know, Democratic Socialists of America candidates won in their primaries, and others where they lost. And at this point is very much dependent upon the makeup of that person's constituency base because in some places you do have obviously more liberal electorate, liberal Democratic voting pockets, and other places you don't.

So, what do you think Angie Nixon's first task should be? Maybe introducing herself to parts of the public that might not know her to counteract maybe already the Republican counterprogramming we're seeing out there?

I think the first thing she is going to do, and I don't know if she should, is go to Democratic voting areas that are a little bit more conservative in person because that's where she kind of shines. She's a very good communicator. She's an organizer by background and mingles well with people. So first, she's got to really ramp up that base.

At the same time, she also has to focus, and the party itself does. They've got to do a deeper dive into who are these NPAs, no party affiliation, and who are these people that belong to one of 15 minor parties in Florida? Because those two groups have been growing at a faster pace in registration than Democrats themselves.

Let's switch over to some of the congressional races in the Tampa Bay area. The lone Democrat serving in Congress in the Tampa Bay area is Kathy Castor, whose district has been redrawn to include more conservative areas. What do you think of her chances against Mike Beltran, who's fairly well known in this race?

That's going to be the most competitive race possibly in the whole state for Democrats, and obviously most of it that works to her advantage somewhat is the ,well for both of them, is it's contained within Hillsborough County. The district has redistricted. It's interesting, but it's on the target list for both the Democrats and Republicans. So the Republicans think that they can win that because their turnout rate in Hillsborough has been a lot higher and their registration rates have gone up. On the other hand, Democrats feel like they can really keep it. She's well known, and let's face it, name ID matters a lot, and she is very knowledgeable of Hillsborough County and a moderate Democrat who has been in office 20 years.

ALSO READ: Florida senate primary winner Angie Nixon relied on grassroots organizing

I think the focal point there is going to be what kind of ads these two run and what kind of issues they emphasize, because Hillsborough County and let's face it, they have an easier time geographically. Their district is much more contained, which means that the partisan impact is going to be even stronger than elsewhere, and there will be a real fight, and it'll extend beyond these two to the control of Hillsborough County.

How about the other Congressional races in the area? Gus Bilirakis, Anna Paulina Luna. These are all well-known Republicans going for re-election. You think it's going to be a close race at all in those?

Both of those races have been targeted by Democrats as races that they're going to put money into. There are a lot of people who speculate, and this is just speculation, that the national party and national donors will put more into these congressional districts that Democrats have a shot at garnering than they will into the top of the ticket races, and I think you will see a lot of money from the national parties for both of these, but particularly the Democrats coming in here because they see it as districts that they can flip, where Republicans say, no way, we're going to hold on to these for dear life. And so in terms of registration, it's frankly a little bit of an uphill battle for Democrats in these two districts.

Statewide, as you know, this used to be a very purple state. The battleground has receded over the past decade or so. With maybe some of the anti-Trump sentiment out there and the growing cost of just about everything under the sun to normal working folks out there, do you think this will put the state back into play more than it has been in the past couple of years?

I do. I do think this will be a closer race. It's still an uphill battle for Democrats, but let's face it, if they lost the last gubernatorial race by 20%, they're not going to lose by that wide a margin this time, and some of the leaders within the party have tried to keep people focused on, let's keep moving up, moving up, moving up, let's grow, let's become more competitive, and let's not put the onus on ourselves of expecting that we have to run the table and win it at all in 2026.

Professor, any final thoughts on the outcome of this primary, how it might change things for the general election?

The thing that's most concerning, and this is an area with a lot of people who are experts in use of the computer and the internet, I'm really watching how much ill use of AI seeps into these races in this area. I mean, when you have the kind of community we have, a lot of business, a lot of universities and education, use of the internet is very high here, and we've already seen at the end of this primary, the last week or so, we've started to see the nastiness that's going on with AI, with people tinkering with other people's websites and ads and so forth. That concerns me greatly.

I'm hopeful that we can get that under control and that people can learn to go to people's websites and not rely on what they're seeing on social media. But I worry that too much of that will make turnout a bit lower than it would have (been) without that.