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Why One of Congress’ Most Polarizing Democrats Is Finally Facing a Serious Primary Challenge
After years of reporting on Jared Moskowitz’s political evolution, I sat down with the only Democrat trying to unseat him.
For years, Jared Moskowitz has cultivated a national image as one of the Democratic Party’s sharpest critics of Donald Trump. His viral committee exchanges and cable news appearances have made him one of the party’s most recognizable faces.
But I know Jared. We were friends once. And I know the facade he presents is nothing like the man underneath the mask.
Before the pandemic, I worked alongside Moskowitz while he led the Florida Division of Emergency Management. After I was fired from the Florida Department of Health for opposing the state’s misleading COVID messaging, he became an unlikely source, communicating with me privately even as I publicly challenged Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pandemic response. That relationship—and the political dynamics surrounding it—was later documented by the Miami Herald in an extensive investigation.
As Moskowitz’s political career moved to Congress, so did my reporting.
What I found increasingly conflicted with the public image many Democrats had of him. His campaign finance, political relationships, and, most importantly, his legislative record painted a more complicated picture than the one presented on television.
Last year, I published a legislative analysis examining dozens of key House votes where only a small fraction of Democrats broke with the party. Rather than measure speeches or social media posts, I looked exclusively at how members actually legislated. Moskowitz consistently ranked among the Democratic members who most frequently sided with Republicans on high-profile, divisive legislation.
Now, for the first time, that record is being directly challenged at the ballot box.
A Different Kind of Democrat
Oliver Larkin isn’t running as a moderate.
He’s running as a Democratic Socialist.
Key Issues for Democratic Socialists:
Universal Healthcare: Creating single-payer systems like Medicare for All to guarantee medical care as a right.
Expanded Public Services: Providing universal child care, and publicly built or managed housing.
Wealth Tax: Raising taxes heavily on high earners, top corporations, and large fortunes to fund social programs.
Criminal Justice and Civil Rights: Reforming or reducing the footprint of policing, scaling back mass incarceration, and supporting progressive social justice movements
Labor Power: Strengthening labor unions and boosting minimum wages
Conventional political wisdom, often by paid consultants who prefer safety over progress, would suggest that makes winning a competitive South Florida district difficult. Larkin argues exactly the opposite.
His campaign is built on the idea that voters are looking for Democrats willing to fight unapologetically for working-class families rather than compromise with Republicans. During our conversation, he repeatedly returned to two themes he hears from voters: protecting democracy and addressing the rapidly rising cost of living.
For Larkin, those issues are inseparable.
He argues that concentrated corporate wealth has not only driven higher housing, insurance, and health care costs, but has also distorted American democracy through campaign financing and political influence.
That philosophy shapes nearly every part of his platform: Medicare for All, banning congressional stock trading, rejecting corporate PAC money, universal child care, paid family leave, and stronger labor protections.
The Campaign’s Central Argument
Perhaps the most interesting part of our conversation came when I asked Larkin how he responds to Democrats who argue that Democratic Socialists fall outside the party mainstream.
Rather than argue he is further left than today’s Democratic Party, he argued he is actually more loyal to it.
Larkin contends that his disagreements with Democratic leadership come from pushing for stronger protections for civil liberties, labor rights, and economic equality — not from supporting Republican priorities. By contrast, Moskowitz’s voting record frequently places him among the small minority of Democrats willing to support GOP-backed legislation.
Whether voters ultimately agree with that assessment remains to be seen.
But it reflects a broader debate now unfolding within the Democratic Party over whether moderation is still an electoral asset — or whether voters increasingly want representatives willing to draw sharper contrasts.
In 2024, a party-wide shift to the right, of which Kamala Harris’ campaign fell victim to, resulted in major election losses across the board.
Climate Still Matters
As readers of Mesoscale News might expect, our conversation eventually turned to climate change.
Unlike many congressional interviews where climate becomes an afterthought, Larkin spoke at length about Everglades restoration, protecting Florida’s coral reefs, investing in renewable energy, modernizing the electric grid, and opposing the rapid expansion of energy-intensive AI data centers.
For a state already grappling with sea-level rise, worsening hurricanes, insurance instability, and ecosystem collapse, those issues aren’t abstract policy debates.
They’re existential.
Democracy Begins in the Primary
Democrats often ask why voters lose faith in institutions.
Part of the answer is that too many incumbents stop being seriously challenged.
Primaries are not acts of disloyalty. They’re one of democracy’s most important accountability mechanisms.
Whether Oliver Larkin ultimately succeeds is as important as the questions his campaign forces Democratic voters to confront.
Should representatives be judged primarily by viral moments and television appearances?
Or by the bills they sponsor, the votes they cast, and the coalitions they build?
Those questions extend far beyond one congressional district in South Florida.
Florida’s Democratic primary for the 25th Congressional District will be held on August 18, with early voting beginning in early August depending on the county. Whatever the outcome, Democratic voters now have a choice, and, perhaps more importantly, a conversation that has been overdue for years.
Record Versus Reputation
One reason this race matters is because it raises a larger question than who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District.
How much should voters weigh legislative records against political branding?
Over the past two years, my reporting has focused on that disconnect.
I’ve written about Moskowitz’s relationships with prominent Florida Republicans, his campaign financing, and the contrast between his media persona and congressional voting history. My legislative index was designed specifically to remove personality from the equation, evaluating members solely on votes cast and legislation supported.
The results consistently placed Moskowitz among the Democratic caucus’ most significant outliers. As one of the most MAGA democrats, it would difficult to downgrade outside of electing a Republican.
Larkin is someone whose ambitions are to serve the people, not himself.
And for that, we should all be rallying around him.
Disclosure: I worked with Jared Moskowitz while we were both at the State Emergency Response Team during multiple hurricanes and the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn more about our relationship, read this article by the Miami Herald.
To read my previous warnings about Jared Moskowitz, click here.
