By Richard Cowan and Andy Sullivan
Aug 19 (Reuters) – Democratic socialist Angie Nixon scored an upset victory on Tuesday in Florida’s Democratic primary race for the U.S. Senate, as voters in several states picked candidates for elections that will determine control of Congress.
The surprise result was the latest in a string of victories for insurgent progressive candidates in Democratic contests this year, as many of the party’s voters have grown frustrated with a party establishment that they see as too old and ineffective in opposing Republican President Donald Trump.
While the movement has stirred enthusiasm on the party’s left flank, analysts warn it could complicate the party’s drive to win control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in November, when members of both parties and independents cast ballots.
No such divisions were on display in Alaska, where Democrat Mary Peltola secured more votes than incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan in the state’s unusual nonpartisan U.S. Senate primary.
Democrats see the contest among their best opportunities to pick up one the one of four seats they need to win control of the 100-seat chamber in November’s midterm election.
Florida’s Senate race is not seen as promising for Democrats. The state, once a top political battleground, has grown increasingly Republican in recent years, and analysts say Nixon’s victory likely puts it further out of reach.
Nixon, 42, has been active in Florida’s labor movement and was reprimanded this year for disrupting a Florida House vote when she protested congressional redistricting legislation with a pink megaphone. She defeated former national security official Alex Vindman, who rose to prominence in 2019 when he testified to Congress during Republican President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
Vindman raised 16 times as much money as Nixon, and analysts said he would likely have had a better chance of defeating incumbent Republican Senator Ashley Moody in November’s general election. The winner will finish out the remaining two years in the term of former Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who now serves as Trump’s secretary of state.
SULLIVAN VS SULLIVAN IN ALASKA
Alaska has not had a Democratic senator since 2014, but the race is seen as competitive. Peltola, a moderate who formerly held the state’s sole House seat, easily advanced to the November general election, taking 48% of the vote, compared with Sullivan’s 42.8%, with 93% of precincts reporting.
Peltola, a moderate who formerly held the state’s sole House seat, stands to benefit from Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, which could allow her to consolidate support among independents.
She also could benefit from having two Republican rivals with very similar names. Retired schoolteacher Dan J. Sullivan, a Republican, was in third place in the primary with 2.4% of the vote.
The Republican establishment has tried to knock Dan J. Sullivan off the ballot, so far with no success. Trump called him an “imposter,” and the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into whether he entered the race to confuse voters and siphon votes from the incumbent, according to a source familiar with the probe. Dan J. Sullivan has told other news outlets that it is not his aim.
In the state’s other congressional race, incumbent Republican Representative Nick Begich III advanced to the general election, as did former school administrator Bill Hill, who is listed as an independent but has donated to Democratic candidates in the past.
VETERAN DEMOCRATS SURVIVE REDISTRICTING, FOR NOW
Two veteran Democratic lawmakers cleared their first hurdle as they sought to survive a Republican redistricting in Florida that forced them to run in new seats.
Representative Jared Moskowitz defeated rival Oliver Larkin, who was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and will face Republican Scott Singer, a former Boca Raton mayor, in one of the few congressional races in the state seen as competitive in November.
Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, first elected to Congress in 2004, won her party’s nomination to represent a Black-majority district centered in Broward County.
After a Supreme Court decision weakened a landmark civil rights law in April, some activists who worried about losing Black representation in Congress criticized Wasserman Schultz, who is white, for running in the historically Black district.
Florida’s new map, pushed through by the Republican-controlled legislature this spring, could leave the state with a House delegation of 24 Republicans and only four Democrats.
States usually redraw their congressional maps only at the beginning of every decade, to reflect census results. But several have redistricted over the past year at Trump’s urging to shore up the Republican majority in Congress, prompting some Democratic-led states to redraw their own maps in response.
Republican Representative Cory Mills, who is embroiled in ethics investigations, was defeated in his central Florida primary for reelection by former broadcast news anchor Ryan Elijah.
Mills has denied allegations of campaign finance law violations and sexual misconduct now being probed by the House Ethics Committee. Democrats had seen the seat as a potential pickup opportunity if Mills had won the nomination.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Andy Sullivan in Washington, additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Lincoln Feast and Chizu Nomiyama .)
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