Jared Moskowitz Just Crushed Squad’s Handpicked Candidate — and His Victory Message Was Perfect

The significance of this result deserves to be understood clearly — and in contrast with what the DSA accomplished elsewhere on Tuesday. Donavan McKinney beat a Hakeem Jeffries-endorsed incumbent in Detroit. A Hasan Piker-backed socialist beat a sitting congressman in a Detroit suburb. Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Senate primary by one point despite everything the establishment threw at him. The DSA had a very good Tuesday in several markets.

Florida was not one of them. Moskowitz won precisely because he refused to do what the DSA demanded. He refused to cease his support for Israel. He gladly accepted AIPAC money. He publicly called out the antisemitic hatred infecting his own party.

While Democrats elsewhere were calculating whether to stand with Israel or appease the activist base, Moskowitz drew his line and dared them to come for him. They came for him. He won by 27 points.

The lesson here matters enormously for understanding the DSA’s actual ceiling — not their primary victories, but their losses. They are strong in heavily progressive urban districts where their activist base constitutes a meaningful chunk of the primary electorate. They are weak in districts with larger Jewish communities, more diverse moderate constituencies, or incumbents with the courage to fight back rather than accommodate.

Moskowitz fought back. He won big. Fetterman fights back. His party keeps trying to primary him. The pattern is consistent: when establishment Democrats grow a spine and make the race about something real rather than playing footsie with the socialist wing, they tend to win.