AOC and the DSA spent years defending communist Cuba while real Cubans – over a million of them – fled to Florida for their lives.
Now Florida's Democrat Senate candidate just gave that same soft-on-communism crowd their most embarrassing moment yet.
A CBS News reporter asked Angie Nixon one simple question about Cuba – and what happened next has South Florida talking one week before Election Day.
The Question Was Simple. The Answer Was Not.
Reporter Cristian Benevides asked Nixon directly: Is Cuba a dictatorship?
Her answer: "That is what people have told me. I have never been to Cuba, and so I will have to take their word for it."
There it is.
Florida's Democrat Senate nominee – a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America since June – cannot personally confirm that a communist regime 90 miles off Florida's coast is a dictatorship.
She needs more evidence.
Nixon later claimed CBS mischaracterized her answer, accusing the network of a "serious editorial failure."
But the clip speaks for itself.
She said she'd take people's word for it.
Every Florida Republican Unloaded
Senator Ashley Moody, Nixon's opponent for Marco Rubio's old seat, did not hesitate.
"Socialist Angie can't answer if Cuba is a dictatorship? I guess now we know why she voted against the Florida law to require schools to teach the dangers of communism," Moody said.
Governor candidate Byron Donalds was more direct.
"This is the craziest thing I've ever heard," he posted. "Of course the Castro regime is a dictatorship. It's sad to see what has become of the Democrat Party."
Senator Rick Scott connected Nixon's non-answer to the broader Democrat pattern of refusing to define basic realities.
"Like many of her Democrat colleagues who can't seem to define what a woman is, we now have a candidate for the U.S. Senate who can't define a dictatorship," Scott said.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2115084791158608054?s=20
The NRCC immediately tied Nixon's comment to every Democrat running in Florida, demanding that Darren Soto, Jared Moskowitz, Kathy Castor, and Pia Dandiya disavow her answer.
This Is Not a New Pattern
Nixon is not alone in her DSA world.
The Washington Examiner reported this August that DSA national co-chairwoman Megan Romer drew attention for the same refusal – declining to call Cuba a dictatorship on camera.
When journalist Jorge Ramos pressed DSA leaders on whether Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are dictatorships, they squirmed and deflected rather than answer.
This is the movement Nixon joined in June.
It is the ideology.
Their worldview – as Manhattan Institute research documents – sees the United States as the actual villain in Latin America, blaming American policy for Cuba's misery rather than 67 years of communist repression that drove more than a million Cubans to flee to Florida in just the past five years.
Nixon said the American embargo has "failed" and pushed to lift it – advocating a return to Barack Obama's engagement policy.
She also went on record opposing the Trump administration's deportations of Cubans back to the island.
The Cuban American Vote Will Decide This
Nixon is running in a state with 1.6 million Cuban Americans concentrated in Miami-Dade and Broward – the most politically active anti-communist voting bloc in the country.
A Mason-Dixon poll released this month shows Moody leading Nixon 50% to 40% statewide, with an 11-point gap among Cuban Americans specifically.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2115111384568549821?s=20
Early voting is already underway in Miami-Dade.
Money cannot fix a clip that will run in every Cuban American household in South Florida between now and November 3.
Here's what Nixon doesn't understand about Florida.
The people voting in Miami-Dade next week didn't read about Cuban communism in a textbook.
They lived it.
They watched family members disappear into Castro's prisons.
They crossed the Florida Straits on rafts to escape it.
They built new lives here precisely because someone was willing to call it what it is.
Angie Nixon couldn't do that on live television.
On November 3, they'll have something to say about that.
Sources:
- Emma Garcia, "Angie Nixon's Evasive Stance on Cuba Sparks Political Uproar in Florida Ahead of Elections," Univision/CBS, October 27, 2026.
- Jacob Ogles, "Angie Nixon said she has to take others' word if Cuba is a dictatorship," Florida Politics, October 27, 2026.
- Ashley Moody, post on X, October 27, 2026.
- Rick Scott, post on X, October 27, 2026.
- Mason-Dixon Polling, NBC Miami/Florida Poll, October 2026.
- Washington Examiner, "How democratic socialists dodge the reality of Communist dystopia," August 25, 2026.
- Manhattan Institute, "The Hidden Agenda Behind Clout-Chasing DSA Comrades' Cuba Push," 2026.
