Angie Nixon, the Florida Democrat who upset Alex Vindman to win her party's Senate nomination, spent months headlining fundraising galas for CAIR Florida, where she quoted a convicted cop-killer, declared Americans "in chains," and called the organization the "right vehicle" for Democratic wins.
Between November 2024 and February 2025, Nixon served as a featured speaker at three CAIR Florida fundraising events in Tampa, Panama City, and Jacksonville. At each one, she closed her remarks by quoting Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Liberation Army who was convicted in 1977 of the first-degree murder of a New Jersey state trooper, escaped prison two years later, and fled to Cuba, where she remained on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list until her death from natural causes in September 2025.
Nixon called Shakur a "famous freedom fighter" from the stage. The quote she borrowed, "It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love, we must love and support one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains", was not a one-time flourish. She repeated it at all three galas, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
At the Jacksonville gala in February 2025, Nixon framed the 2024 presidential election as a turning point, but not in the direction most Democrats would advertise to a general-election audience. She told the crowd:
"This past presidential election was our Brexit event, and we need to start working on building the right vehicles. And the right vehicles are CAIR Florida."
She also made clear she was a repeat guest, not a newcomer. Nixon told the Jacksonville audience she was "really humbled to have been asked to speak again" and joked about the long drives to the earlier events in Panama City and Tampa. "We're going to raise the most money in the state, right, today," she added.
At the Tampa gala in November 2024, Nixon delivered a broader ideological message. She told the room that Americans are living under invisible restraints:
"Let me be clear, we are in chains. Those chains are keeping us from realizing our shared power of demanding and accomplishing a ceasefire in Palestine.... Those chains are keeping us from showing up and demanding the cops find the killers of black trans women."
The Free Beacon reported that Nixon also railed against what she called the "false capitalistic American dream" and declared those who voted against her ceasefire resolution her "permanent enemies," though no verbatim quotes for those specific phrases appeared in the reporting.
Nixon's connection to CAIR traces back to November 2023, when she introduced a resolution in the Florida House calling for a ceasefire in Israel's war against Hamas. The chamber rejected it on a bipartisan vote of 104 to 2. The lopsided tally did not discourage her, it appeared to elevate her profile within CAIR's network.
CAIR Action, the organization's political arm, later congratulated Nixon on her primary victory over Vindman. The group's Facebook post praised her for "calling for a ceasefire and justice for Palestinians" and for having "consistently championed progressive causes."
Nixon joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June, further cementing a political identity well to the left of the median Florida voter. She now faces Republican Ashley Moody, the incumbent senator, in a November special election for the seat Marco Rubio vacated when he became Secretary of State. Polls show Moody as the overwhelming favorite.
Nixon's repeated appearances at CAIR fundraisers carry more than political risk. They intersect with an active legal and regulatory fight in Florida over the organization's status.
CAIR was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2007 federal terrorism-financing case against the Holy Land Foundation, whose founders were convicted of funneling $12 million to Hamas. That designation has shadowed the organization for nearly two decades.
In December 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis signed an executive order designating CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization under Florida law. A federal judge placed that order on hold while CAIR challenges it in court. Four months later, in April 2026, DeSantis signed a separate bill making it a felony to knowingly provide "material support" to any state-designated terrorist organization.
No law enforcement or prosecutorial authority has taken action against Nixon under that statute. But the combination of her documented fundraising appearances, CAIR's contested designation, and the new material-support law creates a legal landscape that would give any competent campaign lawyer pause. Nixon's speeches were not private meetings, they were recorded and posted to YouTube.
Nixon's choice of closing inspiration deserves a closer look than a campaign rally usually gets. Assata Shakur was not a poet or a philosopher. She was a member of the Black Liberation Army, a group the Free Beacon described as a Marxist militant organization. In 1977, she was convicted of the first-degree murder of a New Jersey state trooper. She escaped from prison in 1979, fled to Cuba, and lived there as a fugitive for decades.
At the time of her death in September 2025, Shakur remained on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. Nixon chose to call her a "famous freedom fighter", not once, but at three consecutive CAIR galas, and to borrow her words as a rallying cry for Democratic politics in Florida.
For a candidate seeking a United States Senate seat, the decision to publicly and repeatedly celebrate a convicted cop-killer who spent her final decades as a fugitive from American justice is not a gaffe. It is a declaration of values.
Alex Vindman, the Democrat Nixon defeated in the primary, was himself a polarizing figure on the right. But his defeat at the hands of a self-described socialist who headlines CAIR fundraisers and quotes a convicted murderer from the stage reshapes the November contest entirely. It is no longer a competitive race. It is a referendum on how far left the Florida Democratic Party is willing to go, and the answer, apparently, is all the way.
CAIR Action celebrated the result. Moody's campaign could not have scripted a better opponent. Nixon did not respond to the Free Beacon's request for comment before publication.
When a Senate nominee calls a convicted cop-killer a freedom fighter and tells a room full of CAIR donors that the organization is the "right vehicle" for her party's future, voters do not need a campaign ad to understand what is on the ballot. She told them herself.
