Oliver Larkin, a 33-year-old democratic socialist running for Congress in South Florida, thinks his state is on the verge of swinging blue.
It is a bold prediction for a state that has voted Republican in the last three presidential elections and whose small proportion of Democratic lawmakers tends to veer to the centre to reach what has seemed to be an increasingly conservative electorate.
"For me, the people that I speak with meet me with curiosity," Larkin, a former labour union organiser, told The New Arab in an interview two months before Florida's 18 August primary.
"Democratic voters have been so beaten down. They’ve suffered loss after loss with moderates," he said, noting that the state appears to be on track to nominate David Jolly, a former Republican, as the Democratic nominee for governor in a crowded field to replace Ron DeSantis after his term expires.
Recent local elections have shown a potential shift in the state’s politics. Last year, Eileen Higgins became Miami’s first Democratic mayor in 30 years. Similarly, this year, Andy Thomson became the first Democratic mayor elected in nearby Boca Raton in over 30 years. In 2023, Donna Deegan, elected as mayor of Jacksonville, also broke a three-decade Republican winning streak in her city.
Florida is the third most populous state in the US and is often seen as something of a bellwether for politics. If the state swings back to the Democrats, including progressives , this could indicate what could happen in other parts of the country.
Larkin is campaigning on an unusually progressive platform—not just for Florida. He supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement as a nonviolent form of opposition against what he describes as Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its apartheid expansion in the occupied West Bank. He supports tuition-free universities. And he is an advocate for universal healthcare.
His main opponent in the Democratic primary is Jared Moskovitz, a self-described bipartisan politician, an outspoken supporter of Israel, and a former DeSantis government appointee, per his website. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has said it plans to put substantial resources into Moscowitz's campaign, citing concerns that the district is competitive for Republicans. The New Arab contacted Moscowitz's office for comment, but did not receive a response. "Generally speaking, outside candidates don't end up winning. I think the national Democrats want Moskowitz to win," Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, a website that analyses campaigns and elections, at the University of Virginia, told TNA . However, he didn't rule out an upset, saying that this could be a different year, given a recent series of primary wins by progressive candidates.
Larkin and Moskowitz are competing in Florida’s newly redrawn 25th district, a coastal strip that includes Miami. The area is considered competitive for both parties and will likely be one of the most closely watched races of 2026.
Amid the high stakes of the race, Larkin has created a grassroots campaign with more than 600 volunteers, many of whom say they want an alternative to centrist Democrats.
"I did my due diligence and looked to see if anyone was running against Moskowitz," Jaylin Taylor, a volunteer with Larkin’s campaign, told TNA about how he became involved.
Oscar Alvarez, another volunteer, says that as a Cuban American, he’s hopeful about Larkin’s position to end the US embargo on the country. The decades-long policy is rarely questioned publicly in the US , particularly in Florida, where diasporas from the Caribbean and Latin America often take a hard line on their homelands’ leftist governments.
So far, Larkin and his volunteers say one of their main challenges is name recognition and getting voters familiar with a new name on the ballot. They say that once they present their funding platforms for social programmes, civil rights, and an end to unconditional aid to Israel, they find most people receptive.
Moreover, they have found through their own polling that around 50 per cent of respondents want military aid to Israel to be conditional, while 30 per cent want aid to cease. This would likely be a major shift from just a few years ago, possibly a sign that the Democratic Party is shifting to the left.
"This is a new vision of what the Democratic Party should be," Larkin said. "If it can be done here, it can be replicated across the country."