Florida Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon is running a coffee shop and bookstore in Jacksonville where, according to her own account, customers can receive free Plan B emergency contraceptive pills.
Nixon, a Democratic Socialist state representative, owns Café Resistance, which she describes as a “bookstore, coffee shop, and community hub.” In a June interview, Nixon said the business distributes free Plan B while also hosting events and conversations for members of the “LGBTQ community.”
“We offer free black history lessons on the first and third Saturday,” Nixon said in the interview. “We host mental health workshops. We give away free Plan B emergency contraceptive pills. We invite the LGBTQ community to host conversations that build bridges.” Nixon described the establishment as a “safe place and community hub,” saying she opened it in response to Florida legislation restricting books and classroom instruction.
The café’s role in distributing contraception is one part of Nixon’s radical record on social issues that has put her at odds with Florida Republicans and Gov. Ron DeSantis. Nixon has repeatedly defended bringing her children to drag performances. In 2023, amid debate over Florida legislation restricting minors’ access to adult live performances containing lewd or sexual content, Nixon said the legislation was “designed to target parents like me.”
“I know what’s appropriate for my child & this is taking away MY PARENTAL RIGHTS,” Nixon wrote at the time, describing the drag show as “just folx dancing in cute outfits.” Nixon has also opposed Republican-backed restrictions on transgender policies in Florida schools. During debate over legislation expanding Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law and restricting schools from using pronouns that do not correspond with a student’s sex, Nixon said, “The LGBTQ community isn’t going away, trans people aren’t going away.”
After the Supreme Court ruled that states and schools could prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports, Nixon put out a statement criticizing the decision, arguing that it put “trans children and all young girls and women athletes in harm’s way.”
She also previously accused DeSantis of attempting to “eliminate black history and push out our LGBTQ friends.” Nixon is now taking that record to the statewide stage as she seeks to fill the Senate seat once held by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She will face current Senator Ashley Moody to finish Rubio’s term — which ends in January 2029. Her campaign is centered on issues such as housing, wages, health care, and organized labor, while her record on cultural issues places her firmly on the party’s far-left wing.
Democrats face a steep climb in Florida, where Republicans have won statewide elections by increasingly wide margins. Nixon nevertheless argues that year-round organizing and an appeal to disaffected working-class voters can give Democrats a path back to power.
Whether that strategy can overcome Florida’s political landscape remains to be seen. But Nixon is offering voters a candidacy that pairs an explicitly socialist economic agenda with a far-left approach to some of the country’s most contentious cultural issues — a record that includes bringing her children to drag shows and operating a café where customers can receive free Plan B.
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