Politics
CD 25 Republicans go scorched earth as Jared Moskowitz looks past his Primary challenger
Five Republicans and two Democrats are competing in the Aug. 18 Primary for Florida’s 25th Congressional District, where the GOP contest has turned into an ugly intraparty fight while a Democratic incumbent is largely ignoring his lone foe.
It’s an altogether new district, the result of mid-decade redistricting Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature executed in May at President Donald Trump’s request.
Once a Broward County district represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, CD 25 now runs as a narrow coastal strip down the Atlantic, from Delray Beach in Palm Beach County, through Broward and into Miami-Dade’s barrier island communities, including Sunny Isles Beach, Bal Harbour and Miami Beach.
Trump carried the redrawn District by about 9 percentage points in 2024. Joe Biden won the same territory by 3 points four years earlier.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved CD 25’s rating from “Safe Democratic” to “Toss-up” after the map passed. Cook Political Report agreed.
Voters with no party affiliation form the district’s largest bloc at 35.9%, ahead of Republicans at 32.9% and Democrats at 31.2%. Roughly a quarter of voters are Jewish — likely the highest concentration of such voters in the state under the new map’s district lines, an MCI Maps analysis found.
That second detail has shaped both Primaries, driving a Democratic fight over Israel and competition on the GOP side over who can claim the strongest pro-Israel credentials.
Unlike neighboring CD 22, this district has an incumbent, U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, whose CD 23 was dismantled. He relocated his candidacy to CD 25 rather than retire.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) targeted him even before the redraw, while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) added him to its Frontline program in early June.
Here’s a look at the candidates.
Democratic Primary
Moskowitz, a two-term Parkland incumbent, is a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High alum who helped pass the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act as a state Representative.
He then served as DeSantis’ Emergency Management Director and, under another DeSantis appointment, as a Broward County Commissioner before winning his prior CD 23 seat in 2022.
He is now Vice Chair of the Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and has been a standout voice on Capitol Hill in criticizing Trump and House Republicans, speaking out against rising antisemitism and calling for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to be fully replenished.
Moskowitz, 45, holds a strong funding lead in the Primary, with $2.66 million raised and $1.89 million still banked as of the last quarterly reporting period. Endorsers of his campaign include AFSCME Florida, Giffords, Stop Gun Violence, the Broward AFL-CIO and the Miami Herald.
His vulnerabilities are primarily from the left. He was the first Democrat to join the Republican-led DOGE Caucus after the 2024 election — he says the group met three times and accomplished nothing — and the Florida AFL-CIO endorsed every House Democrat from Florida except him.
He has drawn criticism for stock trading and for accepting money from Alligator Alcatraz contractors, whom he says he’s known since his emergency management days.
He also declined to appear at forums alongside his opponent, prompting the South Florida Sun-Sentinel to withhold an endorsement in the Democratic Primary.
Oliver Larkin, 34, is a Fort Lauderdale native, digital marketing consultant and former union organizer who got his start as a New Hampshire organizer for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.
He’s running on a platform prioritizing a $25 minimum wage, Medicare for all, the Green New Deal, abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, lifting the U.S. embargo on Cuba and ending military aid to Israel.
The Democratic Socialists of America has poured resources into Larkin’s campaign, and supporters include state Rep. Angie Nixon, Dream Defenders co-founder Phillip Agnew, Progressive Democrats of America and Peace Action.
He has raised $542,000 and closed June with $193,000 on hand.
Larkin has had a bumpy final month. A virtual fundraiser headlined by socialist influencer Hasan Piker, whom the Anti-Defamation League has criticized over anti-Jewish rhetoric — Moskowitz is Jewish; Larkin is Catholic, according to Ballotpedia — became a central line of attack against him.
In late July, Larkin falsely claimed Moskowitz backed out of a debate the incumbent never agreed to attend.
But Larkin’s outspokenness has won him ample fans. Fox News abruptly ended an interview with him after he brought up Trump’s presence in the Epstein files, prompting headlines about the incident.
He also won plaudits from anti-Israel voters by agreeing with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s assertion that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested and referring to the world’s only Jewish nation as a “religious supremacist regime.”
Polling heavily favors Moskowitz. A recent Beacon Insights survey found him with a nearly 36-percentage-point lead over Larkin — up about 4 points from the month prior.
National Republicans have made no secret of which Democrat they would rather draw. Both the NRCC and the Republican National Committee (RNC) sent out email blasts talking up Larkin’s chances, with RNC spokesperson Emma Hall arguing that nominating “full-blown crazies” would take seats like CD 25 off the map for Democrats.
Larkin’s answer: “Be careful what you wish for.”
Republican Primary
On the GOP side, the contest has been colored less by policy than by opposition research. All five candidates have run as Trump-aligned conservatives on the same core platform — border security, tax cuts, federal spending reductions and unequivocal support for Israel — leaving the field competing over authenticity rather than agenda.
Two candidates have built websites attacking each other, while a third has the most institutional backing and the least ability to broadcast it.
Absent from the race is an actual Trump endorsement, which everyone involved has treated as a game-changer.
Leading the money race is Scott Singer, a Georgetown-trained lawyer and three-time Boca Raton Mayor who reached term limits in March. He continues to serve as Chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Mayor’s Council.
Since filing to run for Congress last year, when he vowed to bring “accountability” to Washington, Singer has amassed roughly $2 million and had just under half that sum heading into the third quarter.
His endorsers include U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez, Attorney General James Uthmeier, former Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and a dozen-plus municipal officials.
He’s taken a lot of incoming fire. A website funded by Primary foe Dan Franzese cast him as “Biden’s Boca Boy” and a “fake Republican” who gave preferential treatment to developers while trying to quadruple his government pay as Mayor.
Rivals have also hit Singer’s 2022 proclamation of a Muslim-American Heritage Month in Boca Raton and his backing of a downtown redevelopment project that fueled the successful “Save Boca” backlash movement this year.
Franzese, a Wharton MBA recipient and former National Bank of Canada Managing Director who recently turned 64, is making another run at Congress after falling short against Democratic U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel in 2022 and 2024 — the latter of which with Trump’s endorsement.
U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, political operative Roger Stone, commentator Dick Morris and the Second Amendment Constitutionalists of Florida are backing Franzese’s campaign, which raised about $1.48 million and spent $1.02 million by July 1.
Singer’s campaign has branded Franzese “Shady Dan” over a since-paid New York tax warrant and his former employer’s environmental and social governance (ESG) policies. In turn, Franzese’s lawyers sent a cease and desist letter.
George Moraitis, 55, is the only candidate in the field who has held legislative office. A Fort Lauderdale native and 1992 Naval Academy graduate, he spent eight years as a submarine officer and retired from the Navy Reserve as a lieutenant commander in 2012.
He now practices real estate law in Fort Lauderdale.
Moraitis served four terms in the House representing northeast Broward and southeast Palm Beach counties until term limits ended his run in 2018. He chaired the Broward Republican Party from 2017 to 2020.
He raised $839,000 and had $532,000 on hand by Q3 — third in money, but second in a newly released McLaughlin & Associates poll that showed him with 23% support ahead of Singer, who had 19% support, and Franzese, who polled at 28%.
Notably, Franzese’s campaign commissioned the survey.
U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis, Jake Ellzey, Scott Franklin, Mike Haridopolos and Greg Steube are backing Moraitis, along with some 20 local officials. The Sun-Sentinel’s editorial board, in its endorsement of Moraitis, described him as “less strident” than his rivals, citing his 2018 vote to raise the long gun purchase age to 21 — a position Moraitis still defends, but Singer rejects.
Rounding out the Republican Primary ticket in CD 25 are Raven Harrison and Joe Kaufman.
Harrison, a 52-year-old author, conservative media commentator and former marketing executive who ran in Texas’ 26th Congressional District in 2022, raised $778,000 — most of it her money — and spent all but $112,000 of it.
Kaufman, 56, took about 48% of the vote against Moskowitz in 2024, despite running at a significant funding disadvantage.
He has raised much more this cycle, $631,500, and has spent sparingly, leaving $527,500 in his coffers by the close of Q2.
Kaufman, a counterterrorism expert, is the founder of Americans Against Hate — now the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative — and is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has characterized as a platform for anti-Muslim voices.
In 2024, the South Florida Muslim Federation sued Kaufman and others over the cancellation of its annual conference at a Coral Springs Marriott, which Kaufman had urged the hotel to drop. A Judge first dismissed the case in 2025, then reinstated it on reconsideration, and it remains pending as of this writing.
The McLaughlin poll found Kaufman with 7% Primary voter support and Harrison with 2%.
Libertarian Peter Jassenoff will appear on the Nov. 3 General Election ballot with the winners of the Democratic and Republican Primaries.
Also running: write-in candidate Michaelangelo Hamilton, whom Florida Politics first covered in 2022 for being too young to run for Congress but doing so anyway.
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