Florida Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon delivered a politically explosive answer when asked whether Cuba is a dictatorship. Nixon, who is challenging Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, declined to give the kind of direct response the straightforward question demanded.

“Do you consider that Cuba is a dictatorship?” Nixon was asked during an interview with CBS News.

“You know, that is what people have told me,” she replied. “I have never been to Cuba, and so I will have to take their word for it.”

Rather than identify the Cuban government herself, Nixon relied on what unnamed people had apparently told her. Her explanation that she had never visited Cuba did little to clarify her position on a regime that many people have fled for Florida.

The performance carried the evasive energy of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and her “I'm not a biologist” response. For a Florida Senate candidate, dodging such a basic question about Cuba handed Republicans an unusually clean campaign clip.

Nixon went beyond refusing to label Cuba a dictatorship. She also criticized the longstanding U.S. embargo and argued that the policy had failed to bring change to the Cuban regime.

“Right now, this decades-long failed embargo has yet to change over the regime,” she said. “I have talked to Cuban-Americans here in the state of Florida, who have family members that are still over in Cuba, and they told me that they are hurting even more now because of this failed embargo.”

Nixon then attributed increasingly lengthy blackouts in Cuba to the embargo, citing what Cuban Americans had told her about relatives who remain on the island.

“They told me that the blackouts, instead of being 4 to 6 hours long, they're now being 24 and 36 hours — or 48 hours long, because of this embargo,” she added.

Nixon also clearly stated her preference for returning to the Cuba policies pursued during the Obama administration. That position creates another obvious opening for Republicans seeking to contrast her with Moody.

“I am supportive of us returning back to Obama-era policies, much like the Cuban Americans I have talked to down in South Florida feel.”

YIKES: Florida Democrat Senate Candidate Angie Nixon is UNABLE to say that Cuba is a dictatorship:

CBS: "Do you consider that Cuba is a dictatorship?" Angie Nixon: "You know, that is what people have told me. I have never been to Cuba, and so I will have to take their word for it. And I know you're going to go into this, where do I, how do I feel things need to be handled with Cuban relations? Right now, this decades-long failed embargo has yet to change over the regime. I have talked to Cuban Americans here in the State of Florida who have family members that are still over in Cuba. And they told me that they are hurting even more now because of this failed embargo. They told me that the blackouts, instead of being four to six hours long, they're now being 24 and 36 hours or 48 hours long because of this embargo, because hospitals also right now can't get the gasoline or the diesel that they need to run to provide the quality healthcare that people want. And so I am supportive of us returning back to Obama-era policies, much like the Cuban Americans that I have talked to down in South Florida feel, because we need to allow the Cubans over there to have access to businesses and to be able to fully trade with, you know, their American loved ones and also to have the opportunity to see them. And so if we want to actually push to force this regime change, we need to push for aggressive diplomacy at all costs. That means building stronger relationships with the Caribbean so that they can help pressure the regime change." She says this a week before election day. — Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 27, 2026

The problem for Nixon is that many Cuban exiles who directly fled the Castro regime strongly opposed President Barack Obama’s approach. They objected to diplomatic normalization and relaxed economic restrictions involving the communist dictatorship.

Her remarks also arrive alongside her recent membership in the Democratic Socialists of America. Between that affiliation, her refusal to call Cuba a dictatorship, and her support for Obama-era policies, Republicans now have ready-made material for attacks intended to boost Moody.

Florida presents particularly treacherous political ground for this kind of answer because Cuban American communities understand the dangers of communist rule. Gov. Ron DeSantis has emphasized that awareness in South Florida.

“I can't think of a place in this country that has a more instinctive understanding of the dangers of communism than we have in our South Florida communities,” DeSantis has said.

The Cuban regime has inflicted suffering through systematic human rights abuses, including political repression, arbitrary detention, and the suppression of free speech. Cuba has also endured chronic economic stagnation, shortages, and poverty that have contributed to humanitarian crises and driven people fleeing oppression toward Florida.

That makes Nixon’s refusal to offer a firm answer even more striking. A candidate seeking statewide office in Florida might reasonably expect questions about the government that so many Cuban exiles escaped.

Instead, Nixon presented voters with uncertainty about Cuba’s dictatorship while firmly opposing the embargo and supporting a return to Obama era policies. Republicans could hardly ask for a clearer collection of statements to feature in campaign advertising.

Alienating Cuban American voters in the Sunshine State is certainly a political choice. Nixon’s answer showed little understanding of Cuba, its regime, or the Florida communities shaped by those who fled it, and Floridians will have the opportunity to judge accordingly.

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