Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mixed church language with campaign organizing this week, telling the National Baptist Convention she has been “amazed watching how God works” as she pointed to red-state progressive efforts and talked up Florida Senate candidate Angie Nixon.
The New York Democrat made the remarks in Orlando, Florida, where her 2024 tour with Sen. Bernie Sanders became an argument that left-wing organizing can bear fruit even in places written off by pundits.
“Why would you go to Idaho? Why would you go to Montana? Why would you go to Utah?” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I felt very called.”
Utah became the centerpiece of her case for political faith. “We said we must have the faith of a mustard seed. We must organize anyway,” she said. “One year later, out of nowhere, a judge strikes down Utah’s map and they are ordered to redraw. And it is only because of the organizing that we did in faith when there was no evidence.”
The redistricting fight in Utah had its roots in a 2018 anti-gerrymandering ballot measure rather than Ocasio-Cortez’s rally stop.
🤡AOC pulls a Talarico and invokes God as an answer to PROGRESSIVE PRAYERS.
The reason socialism is spreading? Faith.
Progressive liberals running for office in Republican districts? Prayers.
Utah overturning redistricting map? Miracles.Invoking God is just another ploy to… pic.twitter.com/i52hlfTqv6
— DeVory Darkins (@devorydarkins) September 10, 2026
CBS News reported that Judge Dianna Gibson struck down the state’s Republican-drawn congressional map in August 2025 and later adopted a Democrat-leaning Salt Lake City district, creating an opening for Democrats to gain a U.S. House seat.
Montana became another example in Ocasio-Cortez’s convention speech, though her crowd number did not match published estimates.
She told the Baptist audience that a Missoula rally drew “something like 20,000 people.”
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Daily Montanan calculated the 2025 Montana crowd at roughly 7,500 to 9,000 people.
Ocasio-Cortez framed Trump-era disruption as an opportunity for the left to build something new.
“You’ve got someone coming in making a mess of everything and that allows us to rebuild it all from scratch,” she said.
Her Orlando appearance ended with Nixon, a Democratic Socialists of America member running in Florida against Trump-backed Sen. Ashley Moody.
Ocasio-Cortez predicted a Nixon win, while Fox News reported that one poll had Moody ahead by eight points.
The endorsement came earlier this month through Nixon’s campaign, with Ocasio-Cortez presenting the Florida state representative as a candidate aligned with working families rather than corporate interests.
“At a time when working families are fighting tooth and nail to make ends meet while the Administration sells them out to corrupt special interests, we need to stand behind leaders who are accountable to working people and stand up to greedy corporations,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Ocasio-Cortez also cited Nixon’s positions on universal healthcare, childcare and a national rent freeze, along with her refusal to take corporate PAC money.
“Angie Nixon will do just that – from fighting for universal healthcare and childcare to proposing a national rent freeze,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Moody received the Senate seat last year from Gov. Ron DeSantis after Marco Rubio left before his term ended to become secretary of state.
Nixon has pushed away the socialist label even with her DSA membership.
On “Meet the Press NOW,” Nixon rejected Moody’s description of her politics and pointed to housing, healthcare, veterans and campaign money as her reasons for joining the organization.
“Ashley Moody knows that I’m not a socialist,” Nixon said.
Nixon said the DSA drew her because it supports “adequate public housing,” “quality healthcare,” helping veterans get off the street and taking big money out of politics.
Breitbart tied Nixon’s record to abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, granting swift amnesty, universal health care and restoring DEI policies.
Nixon, in a separate interview, placed taxes and DEI inside the same economic argument.
“You definitely just have to work to level the playing field, and you gotta get these. You gotta close these corporate tax loopholes. You you have to put the DEI policies back in place,” Nixon said.
She then defended DEI by questioning why people should not begin from the same place with access to everything.
“And then you actually have to just make sure that you are passing policies that work to level the playing field. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with DEI with leveling the playing field. Why do we not want people to start at the same point and have access to everything?” Nixon said.
Nixon also said generations of poverty, trauma and family history leave people needing more than partial access to catch up.
DeSantis and Republicans also came under Nixon’s criticism over “woke,” after she said it “totally sucks” that Florida teachers cannot be trained on DEI.
“Ron DeSantis had this attack on woke, this stop woke, because he wants people sleeping,” Nixon said.
Nixon said Republicans were trying to hold power because they feared black people, Latinos, women and other marginalized groups becoming a new majority.
“And if we come into power, they are fearful… They’re fearful that if this group comes into power, all these marginalized people, that they’re going to do to them what they’ve done to many of us for hundreds of years,” Nixon said.
INSANE
Far-Left Florida Democrat Angie Nixon claims that Republicans are trying to kill black Americans:
"Work across the aisle with the Republicans? They’re not trying to work across the aisle. They’re literally trying to kill us…" pic.twitter.com/UzJ3occ3Bs
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 20, 2026
Her August comments about Republicans went even further in an interview clip shared by RNC Research.
“And folks often say, like, ‘Oh, are you going to be able to work across the aisle with the Republicans?’ They are not trying to work across the aisle. They are literally trying to kill us, and they are doing it on camera,” Nixon said.
Nixon also accused ICE of being “a weaponized paramilitary force that is designed to terrorize.”
Nixon reached the Moody race after beating former National Security Council official Alexander Vindman by nearly 12 percentage points, despite being outspent roughly 16-to-1, according to Fox News.
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