‘Lying,’ ‘fraud,’ ‘rude.’ Enemies profess peace after hard-fought primary season that set South Florida congressional races

Outspent by more than 4-to-1. Run for office repeatedly, but never won. Facing multiple opponents, including one who’s repeatedly been elected.

Despite the challenges, Joe Kaufman finished 15 points ahead of his main rival on Tuesday to win the Republican nomination for Congress in the Broward-Palm Beach county 23rd District.

Kaufman will be his party’s candidate in the November general election challenging U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Parkland, who is seeking a second term.

The Kaufman-Moskowitz contest is one of five congressional races in districts that are entirely or partially in Broward or Palm Beach counties.

Kaufman and the others challenging incumbents are hoping for upsets, even though independent organizations that assess U.S. House races put virtually all the South Florida contests solidly in the hands of the party now in control of the district.

Statewide, it’s possible a face or two could change, but it’s unlikely that the overall makeup of the state’s 28-member congressional  delegation — now overwhelmingly Republican — will look much different after this year’s voting.

Because of the way Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans in the Legislature drafted the boundaries for congressional districts, they’re all designed to make them heavily favor one of the parties, and aren’t competitive. It was done to maximize the number of Republican seats.

The state has 20 Republican and eight Democratic representatives, although the state’s voters don’t lean that heavily toward the GOP.

Heated contest

Six candidates sought the nomination to challenge Moskowitz, but it was essentially a contest between Kaufman and Robert Weinroth.

Unofficial results Friday show Kaufman with 35.4% of the vote to 20.6% for Weinroth. The other four divided the remaining 44%.

“From the beginning, we believed we would win this, but the other candidates did not make it easy. It was a tough primary,” Kaufman wrote Wednesday on social media, offering positive words about each of the other five, including Weinroth.

“Now, the focus has to be on defeating Jared Moskowitz,” he said. “This is the most vulnerable seat for the Democrats in Florida, and I intend to flip it RED.”

Kaufman is a counter-terrorism researcher, writer and lecturer.

Weinroth was a Democrat when he was elected to the Palm Beach County Commission in 2018 and when he lost his campaign for reelection in 2022 before switching parties. He is also a former Boca Raton city commissioner.

The day after the primary, Weinroth was conciliatory. “We need to coalesce as a party behind our nominee for Florida’s 23rd Congressional District, Joe Kaufman!” he wrote on social media.

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Tough primary

The post-primary positivity belies the nature of the campaign, which was intensely fought.

Near the end of the campaign, an attorney for Kaufman sent a cease-and-desist letter to a Weinroth strategist claiming he made “false and defamatory statements about his client.”

That came after weeks of hostility.

An early summer debate in Pompano Beach among three of the six candidates grew heated when an audience member asked what they thought of “biological males competing in women’s sports in this country?”

“Men should never compete in women’s sports. I don’t care if you call them trans women or, or what, a man cannot compete in women’s sports. And I never supported that and I never will support that,” Kaufman said.

Then it was Weinroth’s turn. “What is going on now with putting people who profess to be identifying as female and they may not even have had surgery and they want to compete, this is wrong,” he said.

Kaufman interrupted: “You’re lying, you’re lying,” adding “you’re lying to the crowd,” to which Weinroth responded, “I am not lying to the crowd.”

Prompted by Kaufman’s pushing, Weinroth explained that he once held a different position in support of transgender athletes that “seemed to me to be a way of treating fairly children who had gone through a transformation and were now biological females and they wanted to be able to compete.” He said after reflection he realized that position would mean that “children that are female were losing out on the opportunities. …  So my position today and my position tomorrow will be (that) biological people who were born male should be in male sports and people who were born female should be in female sports.”

Kaufman said he felt compelled to “expose this lie now because I have to,” adding that “this man right here” is “a fraud… a total fraud.”

He went on to detail past positions he said were espoused by Weinroth — when Weinroth was Democrat — in favor of restricting guns, working on climate change, endorsing Moskowitz, saying “that Joe Biden was a great guy,” posing for pictures with Nancy Pelosi, and supporting Nikki Fried, who sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 2022 and is now chair of the state Democratic Party.

“This is an A1 fraud, and you should be ashamed of yourself, and you’re lying to the people when you call yourself a Republican and you’re lying to the people when you try to make an excuse for saying that you support trans men and girls sports. It was wrong when you did it and it’s wrong today,”

About 10 minutes later, Kaufman interrupted again, prompting Weinroth to snap back: “Excuse me, Mr Kaufman, you’re very rude. Do you want to keep on talking? Do you want to just let us all know what’s going on in your head?”

Weinroth later said people needed to look at the other candidates in the primary and who, like Kaufman, have run and repeatedly lost. “These are, you know, people who are going out there because they think lightning is gonna strike and somehow they’re going to get elected,” Weinroth said.

Kaufman has, in fact, run for office repeatedly before, against U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, in 2018, 2016, and 2014. In 2012, he lost the Republican congressional primary. He also unsuccessfully ran for state House of Representatives in 1990 and 2000.

Weinroth had, in fact, reinvented himself as a Republican after serving on the Palm Beach County Commission as a Democrat and losing his campaign for reelection in 2022. He now describes himself as a supporter of former President Donald Trump.

Kaufman’s previous candidacies may have helped him in the Broward part of the 23rd District, which is larger than the Palm Beach County portion.

In Broward, Kaufman finished 3,990 votes ahead of Weinroth. In Palm Beach County, Weinroth finished eight votes ahead of Kaufman.

Weinroth raised $366,449 and spent $295,949 through July 31, filings with the Federal Election Commission show. Kaufman raised $109,688 and spent $64,535.

Moskowitz didn’t have any Democratic opposition. He’s a former elected member of the Florida House of Representatives and Parkland city commissioner, and former appointed Broward County commissioner and state emergency management director.

Outlook

The 23rd District takes in northern Broward and much of the coast extending south through most of Fort Lauderdale and a share of southern Palm Beach County.

The partisan voting index from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as D plus 5, which means it performed 5 points more Democratic than the nation during the past two presidential contests.

The 2022 Moskowitz victory was closer than some expected — Gov. Ron DeSantis won the territory in the 23rd District — but that election was marked by a collapse of Democratic turnout in Broward as the party’s nominee for governor, Charlie Crist, was headed for an obvious defeat.

For 2024, the nonpartisan Inside Elections rating of the 23rd District is “solid Democratic,” and University of Virginia Center for Politics labeled it “safe Democratic.”

Cook rates it as “likely Democratic,” and was the only Broward or Palm Beach County district that any of the three ratings didn’t put in its most certain category.

Matthew Isbell, a Florida-based Democratic data consultant who runs the MCI Maps firm, wrote on his website that Weinroth would have been “the best candidate Republicans can hope for.”

Still, Moskowitz used the primary as part of a fundraising pitch to supporters on Friday.

“Will you help defeat my MAGA extremist opponent, defend this battleground seat, and win back the House for Democrats in November by giving $15 right now?,” the email stated. “I only won this seat by 5 points, and the MAGA dark money machine is planning on pouring their endless reserves of cash into propping my opponent up and taking me down. Their path to holding the House runs right through my seat, so I’m on their must-defeat list. I’m expecting some crazy attack ads to start flooding the airwaves any minute now — and I’ve got to defend myself.”

Kaufman, so far, doesn’t have the money for advertising, and there isn’t any indication National Republican Congressional Committee, the party organization devoted solely to increasing its numbers in the House, is focusing attention on the 23rd District.

25th District

In the 25th Congressional District, Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly nominated U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston for an 11th term. She is the most senior Democrat in the Florida congressional delegation.

Wasserman Schultz received 83.2% of the vote to 16.8% for challenger Jennifer “Jen” Perelman who said on Facebook the primary provided voters “opportunity to make Jenerational Change.” It was a second attempt for Perelman, who unsuccessfully challenged Wasserman Schultz in the 2020 Democratic primary. Wasserman Schultz did better this time and Perelman worse than in 2020.

Wasserman Schultz said in a post-primary statement that the campaign would be about “our fight for a more just, compassionate and democratic America … District 25 voters made it clear that they want a strong, pragmatic progressive to fight for them in Washington.”

Republicans nominated Chris Eddy, a Weston city commissioner. retired Air Force brigadier general, and retired FBI intelligence analyst, to run against Wasserman Schultz.

Eddy received 64.9% of the vote to 35.1% for Bryan Leib.

Eddy focused his primary victory statement on Wasserman Schultz.

“My opponent has looked the other way as we are losing individual freedom and  sovereignty to an overbearing federal bureaucracy and global institutions that are dictating political correctness, censoring speech, weaponizing the criminal justice  system, and propping up dangerous cartels,” he said, calling her “part of the elite” who represents Washington.

He also said there is a “need to restore civility to D.C.”

The all-Broward district takes in almost everything south of Interstate 595 and a little territory to the north, including parts of Plantation and Fort Lauderdale.

The partisan voting index from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as D plus 9, which means it performed 9 points more Democratic than the nation during the past two presidential contests.

Cook and the nonpartisan Inside Elections rate it as “solid Democratic,” and University of Virginia Center for Politics labeled it “safe Democratic.”

District 22

In the 22nd Congressional District, which lies entirely within Palm Beach County, Dan Franzese easily won the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach.

Frankel, who is running for a seventh term, had no primary challenger.

Franzese won 52.5% of the vote to 25.3% for Andrew Gutmann and 22.2% for Deborah Adeimy.

Franzese narrowly won the 2022 primary, defeating Adeimy that year, but lost to Frankel the following November.

The district includes Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and the territory west of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. It takes in Wellington, Greenacres and part of West Palm Beach. It also includes Palm Beach — including the Mar-a-Lago home of former President Donald Trump.

The partisan voting index from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as D plus 7, which means it performed 7 points more Democratic than the nation during the past two presidential contests.

Cook and the nonpartisan Inside Elections and the Cook rating is “solid Democratic” and the University of Virginia Center for Politics labeled it “safe Democratic.”

Other districts

20th District: There won’t be any November election in the Broward/Palm Beach county district because no Republican came forward to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. She was the only incumbent in Florida who had no challenger this year.

District 24: U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, seeking her eighth term representing the South Broward/Miami-Dade County district, had no opposition in the Democratic primary. Republican Jesus Gabriel Navarro won the Republican nomination with 56.8% of the vote to 43.2% for Patricia “Patti” Gonzalez.

District 21: U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican who represents the northern Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie County district, is seeking a fifth term. He received 85.8% of the primary vote, easily defeating challenger Rick Wiles. Democrat Thomas Witkop was unopposed in the primary.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.