Socialist Candidate Upsets Republican in Florida Primary Race

Tuesday night's primary elections brought federal races from sunny south Florida to the frigid Alaskan tundra and two states in between, all of which will help decide whether Republicans maintain control of Congress or Democrats overtake them. Three states also featured critical gubernatorial primary elections. Observers are already using these results as bellwethers to gauge Trump's grip over the GOP and the power of the emergent socialist movement.

A socialist scored a shocking Senate upset in Florida despite being heavily outspent. A Democratic Socialist will now have a chance to unseat a sitting Republican senator after blindsiding her supposed shoo-in opponent who outspent her by a factor of nine to one. Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and a state representative, defeated retired Air Force Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman in the state's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

Vindman was a prominent critic of Trump who played a central role in the left's failed 2019 impeachment attempt and was expected to emerge victorious. She beat him by almost 12 points, despite his $16.3 million war chest compared to hers of only about $1 million. As of July, Vindman had spent about $9 million on the race while Nixon had spent just over $700,000. Nixon will square off in a statewide race against Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla.

Trump's handpicked successor for governor won Florida's crowded GOP primary. Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., won the Sunshine State's Republican gubernatorial primary against a field that included Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and outsider James Fishback. Donalds won 47% of the vote to Collins' 25%. Fishback took 10.5% of the vote. He will face former Florida Republican congressman-turned-Democrat David Jolly, who won the nod for the job on the Democratic side.

Likewise, Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, herself a Trump endorsee, took home a victory in a special Senate primary election to finish the remainder of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's U.S. Senate term, which ends in 2028. Moody was appointed to the seat last year after Rubio joined the Trump administration. Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida's 6th Congressional District, also endorsed by Trump, easily won his reelection bid.

However, it wasn't all smiles for team Trump. Scandal-plagued incumbent Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., who represents the state's 7th Congressional District, lost his race to challenger and former TV anchor Ryan Elijah. Trump endorsed Mills in February, but the congressman is facing a wide-ranging House Ethics Committee investigation into possible campaign finance violations, allegations of assault against a romantic partner and allegations of improperly received or solicited gifts. Mills has denied wrongdoing. The 7th District leans red, meaning Elijah should have an edge come November.

Meanwhile, Catalina Lauf lost her bid to fill Donalds' seat in Florida's 19th Congressional District in a race featuring a myriad of compelling tidbits. Media executive Jim Schwartzel won the five-way race with 29.1% of the vote while Lauf earned 22%. Businessman Jim Oberweis placed third with 15.7% of the vote. Lauf and Oberweis are familiar rivals, having squared off in a crowded midwestern Republican primary years ago. Both ran in Illinois' 14th Congressional District back in 2020.

Oberweis took the round but fell to a Democrat in the general election. Two years later, Lauf ran unsuccessfully in Illinois' 11th Congressional District without Oberweis even in the picture. The fourth place finisher Tuesday night in Florida's 19th Congressional District was former Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina. He lost in 2022 amid scandal and after trying to change districts. Schwartzel is all but certain to win his November general election in that deep red district.

AMERICA'S REDDEST STATE CROWNS GOP GOVERNOR NOMINEE Wyoming saw a similar story play out in the western U.S. In Wyoming's U.S. Senate primary, Trump-endorsed Rep. Harriet Hageman won in a landslide while serving as the state's at-large congresswoman. She defeated cattle rancher Sam Mead. With 80% of votes counted, Hageman held a 62% to 28% lead over Mead while three others lagged well behind.

However, Republican voters in Wyoming spurned Trump's choice for governor. They elected state Sen. Eric Barlow over Megan Degenfelder, the state superintendent of public instruction. Barlow won decidedly too, holding a lead of 50% to Degenfelder's 29.7% with three quarters of votes counted. Both races were called shortly after polls closed. Wyoming's Secretary of State Chuck Gray won a competitive five-way primary by garnering 25% of the vote. Businessman Steve Freiss earned 20.7%. Army veteran Kevin Christensen took 17.8%. The state hasn't elected a Democrat in a statewide race since 2006, and that trend is likely to continue in November.

Alaska's incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan finished second in the state's non-partisan primaries. He will move on to the general election where he faces three other candidates including former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola, the top vote-getter, in November. Trump buried those losses in a post on TRUTH Social. "A lot of great WINS tonight!!!" he said.

Moderate Dems fended off far-left challengers in Florida House races. On the House side, a familiar face won in the newly redrawn 20th Congressional District in Florida. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was drawn out of the 25th District which she currently represents. She defeated four other candidates including self-proclaimed socialist activist Elijah Manley. He raised nearly $1 million in his bid yet placed third behind former mayor of Broward County Dale Holness.

Manley argued Monday night during an NBC news appearance that it was inappropriate for Wasserman Schultz to run in the 20th District when she lives in what is now the 22nd District. He said Democrats "need fresh leaders" in Washington. He also argued it was inappropriate for a White person to occupy the seat. Race was a major issue with DWS detractors slamming her for running in the district described as "historically black." "One of the last remaining opportunity districts that we have in the South being held by a white Democrat, that's unacceptable," Manley said in his Monday interview.

Former Democratic Rep. Sheri Cherfilus-McCormick placed fourth. She represented the district until April when she resigned after facing federal criminal charges involving alleged misuse of disaster-relief funds. She has pleaded not guilty to those charges. Wasserman Schultz should breeze her way to victory in November in a district that heavily favors Democrats.

Elsewhere in the state, Rep. Jared Moskowitz crushed a surging socialist challenger in Florida's 25th Congressional District by defeating Oliver Larkin with a margin of 64% to 36%. Moskowitz ran as a centrist Democrat while Larkin proudly touted his membership in the DSA on the campaign trail. Larkin said on the campaign trail that he wanted to abolish and prosecute members of U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is moving closer to its end, following a clear directive from his party leadership. This same former Bernie Sanders campaign field director pushed hard for packing the Supreme Court, raising the minimum wage to $25, ending the Cuba embargo, granting D.C. statehood, and adding statehood for Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Moskowitz released a scathing statement attacking the Democratic Socialists of America. Tonight, Democratic voters sent a clear message, he declared. I faced a challenge from the DSA. They threw everything at me and I didn't change who I am or what I believe, and the voters overwhelmingly chose the independent-minded approach I've brought to Congress. He said this with conviction.

I led the effort to have Kristi Noem fired, I've taken on this Administration, and I've taken on extremes in the DSA and won. Now we're running in a tough district hand-drawn by Republicans to defeat me, but I plan to win that too. His district was once reliably blue, yet redistricting has shifted it toward Republicans. He will face Republican former Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer.

Alaska's Senate race remains one of the most closely-watched contests in the nation as Republicans cling to a narrow majority in the upper chamber. The state uses non-partisan top-four primary elections where candidates from all parties compete in an open race, and the top four vote-getters advance to the general election. In the final showdown, Alaska utilizes ranked-choice voting.

Trump-endorsed Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan faced 15 primary challengers, including former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola and a retired teacher. The incumbent Sullivan was second in voting at the time the race was called, and he will move on to the general election. Peltola, who lost her seat to Republican Rep. Nick Begich III in 2024, sat in first place with a razor thin lead of less than 1%.

As of early Wednesday morning, AP had not yet called the final two candidates who would advance to November's four-way Senate contest. Alaska's only member of the House, Begich, will be on the ballot in November as he battles to keep his seat. He will be joined by a surging independent candidate in fisherman Bill Hill and two others.

The top two contenders in the gubernatorial race were separated by only two percentage points when AP called the race. Politics runs deep in the Begich family, as Nick's uncle, Tom Begich, a Democrat and former state senator, secured a spot in the November general election alongside Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.

As of early Wednesday morning, AP had not yet called the remaining two candidates who would advance to the four-way November race for Alaska's lone House seat. The same uncertainty hung over the governorship as well, where AP had not yet called the final two candidates who would round out Alaska's four-person gubernatorial field for November.