Chances are The Adventures of Moxie McGriff is not just a book on your bedside stack. It’s a book about a little Black girl who turns her natural hair insecurities into superpowers, veritable Afro puffs that battle monsters eating books, and trying to dumb down children in Jacksonville, Fla.
In 2015, when she was just seven years old, author Natalie McGriff co-wrote the book with her mother, Angie Nixon, and they won more than $16,000 at Florida’s One Spark crowdfunding event. Fast forward to 2026, Nixon, 42, is now the breakout Florida candidate for U.S. Senate.
Nixon, currently a Florida state representative and a democratic socialist, recently won the Democratic primary special Senate election in Florida, upsetting Alex Vindman decisively, and continuing the progressive momentum in the Democratic Party across the nation. When she wasn’t busy working with her daughter on the book, Nixon was busy overseeing the [Melanin Market](https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/scenes-from-the-melanin-market-and-black-history-parade/), a Jacksonville outdoor facility she co-founded to sell healthy food options and connect residents to local resources.
But these extracurricular activities will possibly have to be set aside in what should be a heated contest against incumbent Republican Ashley Moody, 51, an avowed Trump supporter. Vindman has promised to stand by Nixon’s side and asked voters to join him in supporting her. Recent polls, as unreliable as they have become, show Moody with an almost ten-percentage-point margin over Nixon. It will be a tougher comeback for Nixon against a Republican state that is increasingly red. Even so, Vindman outspent her by nearly $17 million, and she trounced him in the end.
Now, Nixon is going to need all the help she can garner to defeat Moody, and maybe young Moxie can come to the rescue and provide the critical edge for victory.
