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Our verdict

LiberalMind endorses Scott Singer

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026, and early voting is underway in Florida. This is the whole race — the records, the claims against each candidate, and what the sources actually show. Read the research, and decide which flaw you can live with.

The setup

The new 25th District has, in Inside Elections' phrase, "no true predecessor" — it was formed from leftover pieces of three old districts (46% from the old 23rd, 30% from the old 24th, just 16% from the original 25th) and runs along the Atlantic coast from Delray Beach and Boca Raton through Broward to Miami Beach (via Ballotpedia News, Aug 24, 2026). On the new lines, Trump beat Harris here 54.2% to 45.0% in 2024 (The Downballot's calculation); DRA's partisan lean is 52.3R–47.1D. (PollingSource's listed Cook PVI of D+12 cannot describe a Trump +9.2 district and is a pre-redraw artifact; we do not use it.) There is no true incumbent either: Democrat Jared Moskowitz, a two-term member from the old 23rd, is running here because the redraw rebuilt his seat; the old 25th's incumbent, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is running in the new 20th.

The raters lean toward the Democrat in a Republican-drawn seat, and they arrived there recently: Cook moved the race from Toss Up to Lean Democratic on October 16; Sabato's Crystal Ball moved from Toss-up to Leans Democratic on October 8, 2026 — settled by Sabato's own October 8 piece ("Four House Rating Changes," Table 1: Moskowitz, Toss-up → Leans Democratic) and by Sabato's current chart, which lists FL-25 under Leans Democratic; PollingSource's October 7 date is off by one day (the Boston Report compilation and the DCCC both had October 8); Inside Elections holds at Toss-up. The money signal matches the ratings move and then argues with it: in the week of October 20, the Congressional Leadership Fund — the House GOP leadership's own super PAC — slashed $6 million in planned advertising against Moskowitz and redirected $9 million to defending Republican seats; days later the Trump-aligned No Going Back PAC announced $6.3 million into FL-25 against him. The leadership PAC retreated and the Trump PAC re-entered; both moves are documented, they point in opposite directions, and we print both. Cumulative independent expenditures stand at about $15.2 million, $12.3 million of it opposition spending, led by No Going Back's $7.66 million (PollingSource IE tracker). Through October 14, Moskowitz had raised $5,710,776 with $1,210,073 on hand; Republican Scott Singer had raised $3,255,313 with $466,625 on hand (FEC via PollingSource).

The polling must be handled exactly, because there is no honest version of it that favors one side: the only two fall polls were each sponsored by one of the campaigns, and each shows its sponsor ahead. National Research Inc., for the Singer campaign (Oct 12–15, 400 LV): Singer 49, Moskowitz 42. Public Policy Polling, for the Moskowitz side (Oct 21–22, 592 LV): Moskowitz 47, Singer 42. A May Beacon Insights survey (461 RV) had Moskowitz 43, Singer 33 — a spring poll, five months before the fall campaign. The compilations' averages (PollingSource D+1.5 excluding the newest poll; Pollsmax D+1.8 including it) average different sets and inherit the sponsors; we print the polls, with sponsors, and no trend. Also on the ballot: Libertarian Peter Jassenoff on the printed ballot, and one certified write-in, Michaelangelo Hamilton (NPA) — the Floridian Press renders his first name "Michaelangleo"; the spelling conflict is noted, his write-in status is not in doubt, and he is not a fourth printed name.

Jared Moskowitz (Democratic)

The record — and it is the most unusual Democratic record in this series: Moskowitz, 45, was a Parkland city commissioner while still in law school (2006–2012), served in the Florida House (2012/2013–2019), and then did something no other Democrat in this tranche can claim: a Republican governor appointed him, twice — DeSantis named him Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management (2019–2021), where he ran the state's early COVID response and Hurricane Michael recovery, and later appointed him to the Broward County Commission (2022) before he entered Congress in January 2023 (Biographical Directory of Congress via Voteview; Palm Beach Post voter guide, Oct 25, 2026). "An unusual arrangement for a lawmaker now serving in the opposite party's congressional caucus" (American Star News). In Congress he is a Vice Chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His stated priorities: lowering the cost of living, led by the homeowners-insurance crisis — he introduced a Natural Disaster Reinsurance Plan he says could lower premiums by up to 25%, about $1,500 a year for a typical family (his campaign's estimate, printed as such); protecting Social Security and Medicare; restoring ACA subsidies; banning congressional stock trading; releasing the Epstein files (campaign priorities page).

The steelman, at full strength — because the Manchin question is real here: Moskowitz's breaks with his own party exist and some are documented in service. On Israel and antisemitism, he is a Jewish member whose great-grandparents were killed at Auschwitz, backs continued security assistance to Israel, the Jerusalem embassy, and Abraham Accords expansion, and says he has been "a leading voice on Israel, even fighting against my own party" (Palm Beach Post, Oct 15, 2026); at his launch he promised to be "an immovable object" to antisemitism and extremism "from Democrats and Republicans alike." The DeSantis appointments are not rhetoric — a Republican governor handed this Democrat the state's emergency apparatus in a crisis, twice reached for him. He beat back a DSA-endorsed left challenger in his own primary, 63.5% to 36.5%. If the exception were earned by biography, temperament, and cross-party trust, Moskowitz would earn it. That is not the test. The test is proven breaks with his party toward our values, in service — and the rest of his record is where that test is graded.

Where the record runs the other way: Moskowitz's defining legislative episode is the Parkland law. A Marjory Stoneman Douglas alumnus, he worked with victims' families and both parties after the February 2018 shooting at his alma mater (17 killed) to pass the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act — which raised the firearm purchase age from 18 to 21 and enacted red-flag protections (Sun Sentinel account, Sept 29, 2026). Whatever a voter feels about that law, its direction on the Second Amendment is the opposite of ours, and it is his signature achievement in office, not a vote he was whipped into. His own campaign site states the long-term health-care position plainly: he "supports moving toward a Medicare for All system" (jaredforflorida.com/priorities) — printed beside his moderate framing because both are his stated positions, and a single-payer direction is a program position, not a moderate one. His 2026 voting record, per the Post's voter-guide summary: supported requiring President Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran; opposed the One Big Beautiful Bill; opposed the SAVE America Act — the citizenship-verification elections bill. On the questions this publication prices — the Second Amendment, the size of the health-care state, election integrity, the tax bill — his in-service record runs against our values, in the open, by his own account.

The documented blemish: Moskowitz is among the Florida members who violated the STOCK Act by failing to disclose personal financial trades on time (Washington Sun, Oct 2026). Late disclosure is the documented violation; no sourced finding of insider trading was located, and the Singer-side figures circulating beyond that — "a $4.5 million figure regarding Moskowitz's stock trades" and the claim he "votes with the 'Squad'… 90% of the time" (Political Bytes, Oct 1, 2026) — are single-partisan-source and unverified: the $4.5M appears to be a gross trade-volume figure rather than a profit figure, no voting-similarity source is named, and the account itself notes its source material was truncated. We do not print either as fact, against a man whose actual record needs no invention to argue with.

Pros: A proven executive under crisis conditions, trusted twice by the other party's governor; a genuine, costly break with his party's left on Israel and antisemitism; a primary electorate that chose him over the socialist-endorsed alternative two-to-one; an insurance-crisis plank aimed at his district's most painful cost.

Cons: The breaks that pass toward our values are matched — and on the graded questions, outweighed — by breaks and positions against them: the gun law he authored his reputation on, a stated Medicare-for-All direction, opposition to the tax bill and to citizenship verification. The Manchin test asks for a Democrat who breaks with his party toward the Constitution, the free market, and freedom as we price them. Moskowitz breaks with his party toward competence and toward Israel, and toward more state on guns and health care.

The flaw, plainly: Moskowitz's flaw is that he is the strongest version of the thing the exception exists to distinguish: a genuinely moderate-mannered, genuinely able Democrat whose governing substance, examined in service, is his party's substance on the questions that decide our endorsements. He is an enabler of unusual quality — the word still applies, and we do not retire it for good manners and a good résumé.

Scott Singer (Republican)

The record: Singer, 49, was born in Miami Beach and raised in this district, where he has lived 40 years — Pine Crest School, a Harvard A.B. in Government, a Georgetown J.D., attorney and small-business owner — and he is a proven big-city mayor: three terms as Mayor of Boca Raton, 2018–2026, after city council service (Palm Beach Post; campaign site). He is endorsed by President Trump, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, Rep. Carlos Gimenez, and (in October) Ben Shapiro. He won a five-candidate Republican primary with 31.4%.

His case, in his own words — and checked the way we check an endorsee: "I cut the tax rate seven straight times. My opponent voted for the biggest tax hike in American history. I led 21 streamlining initiatives that cut permitting time by more than 60 percent" (WJNO interview, Oct 6, 2026). His site adds that Boca Raton has "the lowest property tax of any full-service city in Florida," balanced budgets, and a Brightline station brought to the city. Endorsement diligence, applied to our own side: the seven-straight-cuts claim is his consistent, specific, checkable signature claim, repeated across his site, interviews, and the Post's own summary of his record ("Voted to lower the tax rate in Boca Raton"); no contradicting source was located, and the millage records that would settle it line by line were not pulled this pass — we print the claim as verified-consistent and unrebutted, not as audited. The "lowest property tax" superlative and a campaign-side claim of crime "reduced by more than 25% from 40-year lows" are campaign claims, labeled as such; the crime figure is not independently verified. The "biggest tax hike in American history" line aimed at Moskowitz's OBBBA opposition is campaign framing of a vote against a tax-cut bill — the underlying vote is documented above; the superlative is his.

His platform: expand the Working Families Tax Cuts; cut regulations and federal spending; strengthen border and national security; ban congressional stock trading; congressional term limits — he supports a term-limits amendment and has pledged not to raise taxes; require proof of citizenship for federal elections via the SAVE America Act; restrict federal funding for institutions receiving certain foreign support; replace the Affordable Care Act (Palm Beach Post guides; campaign site). His closing argument, via the Shapiro endorsement account: "When it counts, he just votes like the rest of the Democrats, Scott Singer won't."

Pros: A proven executive record in the district's own largest city — tax-rate cuts as a repeated governing act, not a slogan; a platform that is the conservative platform with the receipts attached to its centerpiece claim; the Chamber, the AG, and the president behind him; and a contrast on the graded questions — SAVE Act, tax cuts, stock-trading ban, term limits — that is documented on both sides.

Cons: He has never served in a legislature; a mayor's record, even a three-term one, is executive and local, and his tax-cut claim awaits the line-by-line audit his opponent's side never performed either. He won his primary on 31.4% of a five-way field. And his campaign's worst figures against Moskowitz — the $4.5 million and the 90% — failed verification in our research and are printed above as failed, including against the candidate we are endorsing: diligence is symmetric here or it is nothing.

The flaw, plainly: Singer's flaw is scale: everything proven about him is proven at city scale, and his signature claim, while consistent and unrebutted, has not been independently audited in the record we could compile. That is the unproven species in its mildest form — a direction documented by eight years of one city's budgets, about to be tested at federal scale. On watch, and his mayoral books are the first thing we will re-open.

Peter Jassenoff and the write-in

Jassenoff (Libertarian), a pharmaceutical-research data administrator in his first run for any office, says he is running so voters understand "there is more than just Democrat and Republican to vote for," and concedes he does not have "a realistic chance of winning" (WJNO) — candor we print with respect. Michaelangelo Hamilton (NPA) is a certified write-in, not a printed ballot name; no policy record for him was located, and we print none.

OUR CALL

LiberalMind endorses Scott Singer.

This race required the Manchin test in its full rigor, because Moskowitz is the rare Democrat who can even sit for it: appointed twice by a Republican governor, a fighter against his own party's antisemitic fringe, a two-to-one winner over his party's socialist wing. We sat him for it, printed his steelman at full strength — and the graded record answers the question. His signature law restricts the Second Amendment. His stated destination on health care is Medicare for All. He voted against the tax bill and against citizenship verification for federal elections. A break toward our values has to land on our values; his land on competence, on Israel — which we honor — and on more government on the questions that decide this publication's endorsements. The exception is not earned, and a candidate this able makes the rule more important, not less: if manner and résumé could pass the test, the test would pass anyone personable.

Singer passes the side of the ledger that is ours to grade: a proven executive who cut his city's tax rate seven straight times by his consistent, unrebutted account, running on tax cuts, spending cuts, the SAVE Act, term limits, and a stock-trading ban, in a district drawn Republican whose voters chose Trump by nine points. His flaw is scale, and scale flaws are what "on watch" exists for.

One evidence note, because this race's numbers are a hall of mirrors: the raters lean Democratic, the PACs contradict each other, and the only two fall polls were bought by the two campaigns and crown their own buyers. Our call rests on the two men's records, which are the only exhibits in this race nobody purchased.

This race is one of hundreds in LiberalMind's Election 2026 coverage. For the complete breakdown — every race, claim by claim — go to liberalmindhq.com.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Winner: Jared Moskowitz (Democratic) — called by the Associated Press. This result was appended on November 4, 2026 (results wave 1); the original article above is unchanged, exactly as published before Election Day.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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