Democrats find their Florida man

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The Jared Moskowitz show is having a moment. And it may just be the start for the Florida Democrat.

Less than two years ago, Moskowitz was greeted with suspicion by some of his fellow Democrats for once working for Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis. But he quickly made a name for himself on the Hill with attention-grabbing stunts and quick-on-his-feet jabs at House Republicans, irritating them so much that one leading GOP lawmaker incredulously called him a “smurf” during a committee hearing.

In a Congress that is overrun with performance art and selected outrage, Moskowitz has made it part of his mission to push back with his own bit of theater — including cosponsoring a bill to name a Florida federal prison after former President Donald Trump, or daring a House committee to take a vote on impeachment.

“I’m interested in fighting fire with fire,” Moskowitz said in an interview. “I saw the most extreme elements participating in this sort of thing. I saw that debating them with logic and reason in a professional manner didn’t get you anywhere.”

The 43-year-old attorney and former head of the state’s emergency management agency may be on paper just a first-term backbencher coming from a former battleground state. But he’s carved out a role for himself by helping undermine the push by Republicans to impeach President Joe Biden, and has even been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in the future.

And even some Republicans will admit that he has been effective. “Jared Moskowitz is one of the smartest and most tactical Democrats I know and one of the kindest humans I know,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who is no stranger to outlandish stunts and whose battles with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy upended the House. The two members of the Florida delegation have been unlikely friends for the past decade.

In his short time in Congress, he’s basically mastered the dark arts of publicity: POLITICO Magazine bestowed the first-termer one of its “Thirsty Awards,” citing his ability of “regularly feeding the viral video machine with clips of himself pantsing Republicans” and “going above and beyond with props.”

But it hasn’t been all bullseyes. He wound up deleting what he acknowledged was an “inappropriate” social media post in March that juxtaposed a picture of a somewhat startled Biden next to a picture of actor Sydney Sweeney from her Saturday Night Live appearance.

He’s fought members of his own party, as well, this week getting in a scuffle with progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) after chiding Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for, in his view, not sufficiently speaking out about antisemitism.

Moskowitz insists that it’s not all about theatrics to try to go viral. He points to several bills and resolutions that he’s either gotten passed, cosponsored or gotten attached to larger pieces of legislation.

And this week, just hours before Passover, he visited Columbia University with other Jewish Democrats and spoke loudly against pro-Palestinian protests that he said included harassing and antisemitic behavior — something he continues to do continuously on social media, where his reach far surpasses many members of his caucus.

“You don’t want to be silent, you want to be counted,” Moskowitz said of his trip to Columbia. He added that he decided to go after hearing from parents of Jewish students who live in his South Florida district.

He also acknowledges that he doesn’t fit in neatly with some of the factions in Congress.

“The progressives think I’m a Republican and the Freedom Caucus thinks I’m a progressive, which tells me that I’m right where I need to be,” Moskowitz said.

Moskowitz has been immersed in politics most of his life. The son of an attorney and a prominent Democratic fundraiser who grew up in South Florida, he worked as an intern for Vice President Al Gore. Moskowitz got elected to his local city commission when he was still in law school before running for the Florida Legislature in 2012.

It was during his stint in Tallahassee that he met Gaetz and tried to find ways to work with Republicans even if he would occasionally tweak them — like the time he came to a committee meeting on redistricting with a box of crayons.

“Jared was on an island,” said Jared Rosenstein, a Tallahassee-based lobbyist who worked for years as a legislative aide and then as a top staffer for Moskowitz. “Sure, he was a Democrat and he spent a lot of time building relationships with Republicans. But he wouldn’t hesitate to burn the house down.”

Rosenstein added “I think a lot of people will dismiss a politically connected rich kid in politics. But the difference is Jared works really hard and he cares.”

Moskowitz’s most consequential moment in the Legislature came after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland where 17 students and staff were killed. Moskowitz had attended the school and at the time of the shooting, his then 4-year-old son was in a writing class being taught by the mother of one of the victims.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Moskowitz visited the scene with other legislators and worked alongside Republicans to craft the comprehensive bill that raised the age to purchase a rifle in Florida from 18 to 21, set aside millions for school mental health programs and included a “red flag” provision.

Many Democrats, saying the bill did not go far enough to stop gun violence and objected to a plan to allow armed employees on school campuses, voted against the legislation along with a handful of Republicans who opposed some of the new gun restrictions. Moskowitz recalls that he had Democratic legislators telling him at the time that “you are done. We will primary you. It’s over.”

Months later, Moskowitz had just won another term in the Legislature when he got tapped by DeSantis to lead Florida’s emergency management division. Gaetz — who served on the DeSantis transition team — had recommended that DeSantis take a chance on Moskowitz since he had been working as a top attorney for one of the nation’s largest disaster response companies.

Gaetz recalled that he recommended that DeSantis should hire the “state’s smartest Democrat” and put him in a “non-partisan job.”

Moskowitz started just weeks after Hurricane Michael, a category 5 storm, had ripped through Florida’s Panhandle. He would also lead the agency during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Moskowitz — who stepped down from the job in the spring of 2021 — also worked on distributing Covid-19 vaccines when they first became available, including signing off on a plan to route them through Publix supermarkets. The popular chain had previously donated to DeSantis. Moskowitz took to Twitter, now called X, to slam a “60 Minutes” report that questioned whether the governor was trying to help a donor. “No one from the Governors office suggested Publix. It’s just absolute malarkey,” Moskowitz wrote.

It was Moskowitz’s connections to DeSantis — who also appointed Moskowitz to a vacant county commission post — that drew suspicions from some Democrats when he made the decision to run for Congress after a blue-leaning seat opened up in 2022. He crushed five other Democrats in the primary anyway, and won by a bit under 5 percentage points in November.

Since then, Moskowitz has earned plenty of attention during his time in Congress — including an angry exchange with Rep. James Comer who said “you look like a smurf” to Moskowitz during a hearing. But he wasn’t always a social media star: Moskowitz had to be coaxed into getting on social media by Rosenstein, his former staffer.

In a state under solid Republican control, Moskowitz is one of several Democrats whose name has been floated as a potential candidate for governor in 2026. But he pushes back against the idea quickly.

“After what happened in Parkland, I stopped planning my political future,” Moskowitz said.

He follows that up by pointing out the political trajectory in his home state — where Republicans have a 900,000 edge in voter registration now — is dependent on what happens to Biden and Trump in November. But he doesn’t entirely rule out a run, either.

“I’m not interested in just being the nominee, I’m interested in winning,” Moskowitz said. “We’ll see if the math works. We have to see how Biden does against Trump.”