Florida's Angie Nixon isn't the socialist you've heard about

Immediately after her shocking upset in Florida's Democratic Senate primary, state Rep. Angie Nixon made clear she isn't really a socialist — even though she'd just joined the Democratic Socialists of America.Why it matters: Nixon's win is being cast as a DSA victory, but the organization neither endorsed her nor saw it coming. She ran as a big-tent leftist, linking progressive movements and party institutions in unlikely alliances."I don't campaign as a member of any organization," she told Axios, echoing comments she made to MSNOW and CBS. "I don't believe in labels."Nixon said she joined the DSA because she supports its fights over housing, public education, corporate power and — above all — Medicare for All.The latest: Since winning, Nixon has moved fast to separate herself from DSA orthodoxy."No," she laughed, when asked if she's a socialist. "I own a business." (It's a bookstore called Cafe Resistance.)"No," she doesn't back abolishing all prisons — just for-profit ones. Nor does she support "defunding" police or having so-called "open borders.""No," she said, "I do not celebrate [Fidel] Castro" — and she disagreed with the national DSA's controversial commemoration of the late Cuban dictator."Yes," she will campaign with progressives and moderates, including David Jolly, the ex-Republican now running as the Democratic nominee for governor.The big picture: Socialism is gaining with the Democratic base and younger voters. But in Florida, it's been seen as general election poison.There's particularly strong antipathy in South Florida's sizable Cuban, Venezuelan, Colombian and Nicaraguan communities that equate socialism with oppression and violence.Pro-Israel Jewish voters tend to oppose the DSA because of its opposition to Israel's treatment of Palestinians, a cause Nixon embraces. (She calls Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a war criminal.)The intrigue: In early July, some DSA activists questioned Nixon's socialist purity when she sought an endorsement from the group.In screenshots first reported by Politico, a Miami organizer called her "good on Palestine" and close to unions and movement groups, but "not a socialist or DSA member."Besides, the organizer wrote, Nixon "will probably lose," and endorsing her "advances the narrative that DSA can't win in swing states."National DSA leaders were blindsided by Nixon's win.The miss exposes a potential blind spot in an organization that routinely faults Democratic leaders for losing touch with the grassroots.The national DSA declined to comment, and the Miami activist didn't respond to a request for one.Catch up quick: Nixon's double-digit victory was the biggest upset in modern Florida Democratic politics.Democrat Alex Vindman outraised her nearly 17-to-1, and she won without endorsements from the DSA, Sen. Bernie Sanders or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Sanders backed her two days after the primary.But she had an organizing base built over nearly two decades in politics and local ac