House candidate Angie Nixon tests positive for COVID-19

Contact tracing a slow process for the state of Florida, Angie Nixon says.

A Democratic candidate for the Florida House from Jacksonville has tested positive for COVID-19.

Angie Nixon, primarying incumbent Rep. Kim Daniels in House District 14, revealed Wednesday that she had tested positive for the disease.

“I will be self-quarantining for the foreseeable future and working with my doctors for the right course of treatment over the next few weeks,” Nixon tweeted.

The candidate first figured out she might be sick this weekend, when she said she felt “mild symptoms.”

Health workers “traced my exposure back to someone that came within my personal space with no mask and tested positive about a week prior.”

For Nixon, a candidate who has had real momentum in terms of fundraising and endorsements, the positive diagnosis comes at an inopportune time, just weeks from a primary against a second-term incumbent.

Nixon is the first Jacksonville politician to test positive this week, but the second to self-quarantine.

With the Republican National Convention headed to Jacksonville next month, Jacksonville’s Mayor Lenny Curry is self-quarantining out of COVID-19 fears, though as of Monday he said he had only tested negative.

“I learned on Sunday I had been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19,” Curry said, noting that he tested negative for the coronavirus.

Both Curry’s and Nixon’s sequestration came a week after the city issued a mayoral proclamation mandating face coverings, with a lawsuit challenging the right to issue a mask order following.

Nixon is not the only active Jacksonville politician to catch a case. City Council Vice President Sam Newby, a second-term Republican serving in one of the five citywide at-large districts, tested positive in the early days of the local pandemic. He has since recovered.

Jacksonville, much like the rest of the state, has dealt with a spiking rate of positive tests in recent weeks. Tests processed Tuesday showed 601 new positives, good for a 13.3% positive rate.

While that number is still alarming, it is lower than previous days in which the rate flirted with 17%.