Blue America Endorsement In South Florida: Oliver Larkin

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Oliver Larkin’s birthday was Friday, July 4th. On Tuesday he launched his primary campaign to represent Florida’s 23rd congressional district— parts of Broward and southern Palm Beach counties. Biden won district by 13.2 points. The controversial current congressman, corporate New Dem Jared Moskowitz, won by less than 5.

Moskowitz wants South Florida voters to believe he’s some kind of moderate problem-solver— a pragmatic Democrat in a progressive district just trying to do right by his constituents. But when we scratch the surface we find a shameless opportunist whose loyalties lie with corporate donors, the military-industrial complex and the Likud and AIPAC’s extremist agenda— not the people of South Florida.

Since arriving in Congress, Moskowitz has  carved out a niche for himself as one of the most reliable enablers of right-wing foreign policy in the Democratic caucus. He’s part of the New Dem Coalition— a corporate-aligned faction bankrolled by big business and billionaires— and he votes like it. He’s backed legislation giving Netanyahu’s far-right government a blank check, parroted GOP talking points about Gaza and antisemitism, and worked hand-in-glove with AIPAC to smear progressives who speak out for Palestinian human rights. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a statement was made by Moskowitz or by Republican fellow extremist Randy Fine.

Blue America thinks we’ve all had enough of this clown. Florida progressives deserve a representative who fights for peace, justice and the working class— not another lackey for corporate lobbies and pro-war billionaires. That’s why we’re proud to endorse Oliver Larkin— a movement candidate who actually represents the values the Democratic Party has always stood for— until the New Dems came along.

Oliver isn’t just the better candidate— he’s the only candidate in this race who actually gives a damn about the people instead of the donor class. While Moskowitz has taken money from weapons manufacturers and AIPAC’s dark-money machine, Larkin refuses corporate PAC money and speaks with moral clarity about the need for a ceasefire in Gaza, Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and housing as a human right. He’s unapologetically pro-labor, pro-peace and pro-justice— exactly the kind of voice we need in a Congress overrun by cowards, cynics and careerists. Where Moskowitz toes the line for corporate lobbyists and Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, Larkin is building a movement rooted in solidarity, not servitude. The choice in this race isn’t between left and right— it’s between conscience and corruption. Read what Oliver has to say below and consider contributing to his campaign here.

I’m Running for Congress in Florida’s 23rd District — Income and wealthy inequality is the great economic fight of our time. In Congress, I’ll introduce legislation to pay Americans a Big Tech Dividend and regulate the industry as a public utility.

-by Oliver Larkin

I’m a 33-year-old progressive from South Florida, running for Congress in my hometown 23rd district. Our country needs more champions for Medicare for All, a $25 living wage and getting money out of politics. We will be building this campaign every day to win those policies.

But we must go further. Oxfam International predicts the acceleration of income and wealth inequality will produce the world’s first five trillionaires within the next decade. That is obscene, immoral, and destructive to our country and the planet’s future.

In an economy of increasing monopolization, the billionaires behind Big Tech have made out like bandits. Today’s social media giants have effectively recreated the public commons as for-profit companies, where they can throttle and manipulate public discourse to serve their own private interests.

This is an income and wealth inequality issue. It is a free speech issue. And it is an issue of hundreds of millions of Americans having Big Tech billionaires steal and sell off our data to corporate advertisers without any of us getting our cut.

Today, three billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of our country— 165 million Americans. They are Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk— in control of Amazon and the Washington Post, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and Tesla, SpaceX, and X (fka Twitter), respectively. Musk alone spent $275 million buying the last presidential election for Donald Trump.

Which brings us to my opponent, Representative Jared Moskowitz. He spent the homestretch of the 2024 campaign bashing progressives. He appeared time after time alongside frontline House Republicans like New York congressman Mike Lawler. When Democrats lost, Moskowitz blamed the left— and became the first Democrat to join Elon Musk’s DOGE Caucus.

The 23rd district’s representative should have known better. Years before Elon was making empty promises for government handouts in Washington, he was doing it here. Musk received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Fort Lauderdale Commission for his Boring Company to build a tunnel from downtown to the beach— only Teslas allowed.

But that’s the thing: Congressman Moskowitz was recently rated by the nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University as Florida’s Least Effective Democrat in Congress.

Combined with his affinity for billionaires and the far-right (he’s close friends with Matt Gaetz, and received two political appointments from Ron DeSantis), Moskowitz has put this seat— including Broward County, with the highest Democratic registration in the state— on a razor’s edge of getting flipped by the GOP. It is practically unthinkable.

But the Democratic political establishment has spent the decade I’ve worked to elect a new generation of progressive leaders trying to squash that movement.

I traveled the country as an organizer for Bernie Sanders while Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the DNC chair and congresswoman for our neighboring district, put her thumb on the scale in a Democratic primary. The subsequent collapse in Democratic voter registration and in partisan elections across Florida has been near-total.

For Democrats to win again in red states like Florida, we need members of Congress whose first priority is taking on these far-right billionaire oligarchs head-on, not working with them to fight the left. We need to show the country what fighting for a true progressive agenda looks like.

Musk and other Big Tech billionaires profit massively off of the sale and targeting of our personal browsing data. In Congress, I’ll introduce legislation to regulate Big Tech as a public utility, break corporate monopolies, and deliver every American a Big Tech Dividend from the use and sale of our personal browsing data— not legitimize and help fascist oligarchs like Elon Musk act as middlemen.

It will take a mass movement of progressives nationwide to take on the entrenched South Florida Democratic political establishment and win this race. Including you.

I hope you’ll join me.

Oliver Larkin
Democrat for FL-23