The Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives for Florida's 28th district, Phil Ehr, announced on Tuesday that he will not support his fellow party member Angie Nixon nor defend the statements she made about Cuba in a television interview, thus becoming the first major Democratic candidate for the House to publicly criticize the Senate candidate.
The controversy erupted after a Nixon interview with CBS News in which, when directly asked if Cuba is a dictatorship, she responded: "That's what I've been told. I've never been to Cuba, so I have to believe them."
The response sparked a wave of criticism in the final stretch of the campaign for the elections on November 3, in which Nixon faces Republican Ashley Moody for the Senate seat left vacant by Marco Rubio upon assuming the position of Secretary of State.
Ehr, a retired commander of the U.S. Navy with 26 years of service, published an extensive message on X in which he was emphatic: "Cuba is a communist dictatorship. Anyone aspiring to serve in the U.S. Senate should be able to say those words without hesitation."
The former naval officer linked his stance to his own experience: "My first mission in the U.S. Navy was rescuing Cuban families fleeing the Castro regime. I spent the next 26 years defending the Constitution and the freedoms for which those families risked everything."
Ehr also pointed to Nixon's affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization that, as he noted, "has sent delegations to Havana to meet with officials of the Cuban government and has publicly praised the achievements of Cuban socialism," while the Cuban people live under a regime that imprisons opponents and suppresses dissent.
"There is nothing progressive about making excuses for communist dictatorships. And there is nothing democratic about refusing to acknowledge one," Ehr wrote, before concluding with a straightforward statement: "I will not support Angie Nixon or defend her words. If the Democratic Party is not willing to condemn them, I will. The Democratic Party does not own my conscience, and political loyalty will never take precedence over my duty to this country."
Nixon responded hours later with a message in Spanish, in which he tried to clarify his position: "I say this clearly: I do not celebrate Castro. I call Cuba what it is, an authoritarian regime, and I will fight for the Cuban families who fled from it." His campaign also released a comparative graphic accusing Moody of supporting federal funds to deport Cuban families back to the regime from which they escaped.
The candidate also criticized CBS News's initial coverage, which removed its original post and disseminated a corrected version with an editorial note stating that "an earlier version did not accurately reflect Nixon's response."
Ehr is not the only Democrat who distanced himself from Nixon. Eliott Rodriguez, candidate for district 27 and son of Cuban immigrants, also publicly distanced himself by stating that "Cuba being a dictatorship is not a matter of opinion. It is a fact."
The controversy comes at a critical moment for Nixon, whose affiliation with the DSA has raised concerns among Democratic strategists since winning the primary in August with 56% of the votes, given the influence of the Cuban-American electorate in Miami-Dade.
Surveys from NBC Miami place Moody ahead of Nixon, although the margin varies depending on the poll, and early voting is already underway in the county with 28 centers open until November 1st.
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