“Give us more power, or give us more money.” That, says Florida Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, is the core formula of the Democratic Socialists of America platform, and she argues it is failing in cities across the country. Moody laid out the case to Fox News Digital in an interview in Miami, as she campaigns against Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon, who is a DSA member.
Moody’s argument
Moody warns that what she calls a far-left agenda could undermine the free-enterprise model she credits with making Florida an economic powerhouse. In her telling, the Democratic answer to affordability, health care or a business dispute comes down to one of two things: give government more power over business, or give it more money and trust it to improve things.
She pointed to taxes as the contrast. “In Florida, we had the highest average tax return of any state in the nation,” she said. Republican policy, she added, has focused on letting Americans keep more of what they earn, through deductions for tips and overtime, relief for seniors and an expanded child tax credit. A former federal prosecutor, judge and Florida attorney general, she also described herself as one of the original members of a Senate task force on fraud, saying it is “a slap in the face” that taxpayer dollars went to criminals and corruption.
Federal intervention, she argued, raises consumer costs and lowers quality, while competition in private markets holds prices down and encourages innovation. “If my opponent had her way, government would control everything,” she said.
The platform she is attacking
Priorities associated with the DSA include Medicare for All, free childcare, paid family leave, rent freezes and eviction moratoriums, a universal jobs program, wealth taxes and reduced military spending. Moody also criticised the platform’s stance on the military, police and prisons, and on noncitizen voting. “It should scare anyone to read through the agenda,” she said.
She invoked Cuba, a sore point in a state with a large exile community. After Fidel Castro’s revolution, she said, the government seized private industry, which led to bread lines, power outages and oppression. Karen Rodriguez, a Cuban-born Miami resident, told Fox News Digital earlier that plans like those of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani felt like “copy, paste” of what failed in Cuba. Mamdani won the 2025 mayoral race promising universal childcare, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments and higher taxes on millionaires, and his win prompted another wave of wealth migration to low-tax states such as Florida.
The economic backdrop
Households nationally are under pressure. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index showed inflation up 0.4% on the month and 3.4% on the year. Florida’s economy, meanwhile, has grown to $1.8 trillion, the world’s 14th largest and ahead of Australia and Mexico in GDP, according to a July 2026 Florida Chamber Foundation report. The foundation said it grew 6.3% over the previous year.
Nixon’s campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Moody’s remarks or on Nixon’s policy positions.
