Republicans believe they can flip this seat in a Florida blue bastion. Here’s why | Opinion

Here’s an email that a few years ago wouldn’t have landed in a journalist’s inbox:

“Over the weekend, chaos erupted in the streets of Los Angeles... While law enforcement struggled to restore order, out of touch Democrat Jared Moskowitz remained silent.”

What makes it notable isn’t the topic of the email, or the fact that Moskowitz isn’t from California. It’s who sent it: the National Republican Congressional Committee, an organization dedicated to electing Republicans to the House. The NRCC has put Moskowitz, a two-term Democratic congressman from Parkland, on its target list of seats Republicans want to flip in 2026.

Moskowitz represents District 23, covering Fort Lauderdale and northern Broward County as well as a swath of southern Palm Beach County, an area that’s traditionally been represented by Democrats. Moskowitz didn’t face a strong Republican opponent in the last two elections and national Republicans didn’t pay much attention to him until now. But the GOP believes it can win this congressional seat, potentially attracting national attention and money next year.

Whether Republicans can actually pull this off remains to be seen, but, more importantly, the focus on Moskowitz’s district signals the changing political landscape of Florida and how emboldened the GOP feels.

While Miami-Dade County flipped red last year in the presidential election, flipping Broward still seems unlikely given Democrats’ 240,000-plus voter-registration advantage over Republicans in the county. But President Donald Trump made inroads there in 2024, making local elections closer than they would have been in the past. Picking up individual seats in Broward no longer looks like a far-fetched proposition for the GOP.

Still, defeating Moskowitz wouldn’t be easy. He’s seen as a pragmatic moderate — he served as Florida’s director of emergency management in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration. He’s a good fundraiser. In a district with a large Jewish constituency, Moskowitz, who’s Jewish himself, has been a staunch defender of Israel and spoken up against antisemitism. At the same time, there are signs that he might have angered some of the Democratic Party base. As WLRN reported, Moskowitz’s name was booed by a crowd of about 450 activists when it was announced that he wouldn’t be attending an April town hall hosted by the activist group Hope and Action Indivisible.

Moskowitz’s victories in 2022 and 2024 had the smallest margins of any congressional races in Florida. He defeated Republican Joe Kaufman by less than 5 percentage points last year. His district leans Democratic but not by as large of a margin — about 6% as of October 2024 — as other nearby districts. While Joe Biden carried District 23 by a 13.2-percentage-point margin, Kamala Harris barely won it with a margin of 1.9 points, according to an analysis by The Downballot.

Moskowitz’s own campaign has called his 2026 reelection bid “one of the most competitive in the country” in fundraising emails, the Sun Sentinel reported. The Herald Editorial Board reached out to his office but did not hear back.

The NRCC has sent out news releases and has run digital ads attacking Moskowitz, but will the organization actually spend money to defeat him? The answer to that question will probably rest on whether his GOP opponent is able to raise money and show they are credible.

So far, George Moraitis, a Broward County attorney and former state representative, is considered to be the Republican front-runner in the race. In his first four weeks as a candidate, he raised $152,369, almost as much as Moskowitz did in the first three months of the year, the Sentinel reported. But Moraitis still has a long way to go given that competitive congressional races can cost millions.

And there’s the Trump factor. With the party in the White House normally losing House seats in midterms, the results of next year’s elections will also depend on how the president is doing. Will his tariff war cause a recession, or will his popularity bounce back ahead of next November?

There are many unknowns in the race for District 23, but this much seems clear: The repercussions of Florida’s the rightward shift will likely continue, and even Democratic strongholds might not get spared.

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