Jared Moskowitz Beat His DSA Challenger by 27 Points. His First Move Wasn’t a Thank-You. It Was ‘My Condolences’ to Hasan Piker.
On Tuesday, August 18, 2026, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL-25) turned back the most serious primary challenge of his career, beating Democratic Socialists of America-backed challenger Oliver Larkin by 27 points, 63.5 percent to 36.5 percent, in Florida’s newly redrawn 25th Congressional District. The two-term, pro-Israel Jewish Democrat had been outraised roughly 11-to-1 for most of the campaign, with AIPAC alone contributing $667,200 of his $2.5 million war chest.
Moskowitz didn’t spend his first public words that night on the voters who had just renominated him. He posted on X: “My condolences to @hasanthehun” — a jab at Twitch and YouTube streamer Hasan Piker, who had endorsed Larkin and fundraised for him. Piker fired back within hours, accusing Moskowitz of caring more about a media critic than his own constituents.
This is a TDS Watch item because of what it says about how a sitting House Democrat chose to spend the biggest news cycle of his campaign: not a policy pitch to the general-election voters he needs in a district Republicans just redrew in their own favor, but a public jab at an online streamer — fired off before a single word of thanks to the people who just renominated him.
- 63.5% – 36.5% Moskowitz's winning margin over DSA-backed Oliver Larkin in the Aug. 18, 2026 Florida Democratic primary for FL-25 — The Hill; RedState
- $667,200 AIPAC's direct contribution to Moskowitz's $2.5 million campaign war chest, part of an overall 11-to-1 fundraising advantage over Larkin — JTA; Open Secrets, via Yahoo News
- “My condolences to @hasanthehun” Moskowitz's own words, posted the night his win was called — before any message thanking FL-25 voters — X; Fox News, Aug. 19, 2026
- 55.7% – 44.3% the same primary night, DSA-aligned state Rep. Angie Nixon (D) upset Alexander Vindman in Florida's Democratic Senate primary despite being outraised roughly 16-to-1 — Algemeiner, Aug. 19, 2026
- “Demonstrably untrue” the Sun-Sentinel editorial board's fact-check rating of Moskowitz's claim that Larkin ran against him “solely on my religion” — JTA, citing the Sun-Sentinel
The sequence is documented, not disputed. Florida’s primary was called for Moskowitz Tuesday evening; within hours, his account posted the “condolences” line. A separate message thanking FL-25 voters didn’t go out until the next day, August 19 — after the Piker jab had already circulated across conservative media and cable green rooms.
My condolences to @hasanthehun
its pretty wild that his first thought was a prominent critic of israel, before even thanking his constituents lmao. really worried about his genocidal emotional support apartheid state.
Piker isn’t an elected official — he is a Twitch and YouTube streamer with a large left-wing following who has become a fixture in several 2026 Democratic primaries, endorsing and fundraising for insurgent candidates challenging pro-Israel incumbents. That is the whole of his institutional role in this story: not a party official, not a candidate, but a commentator whose endorsement Larkin’s campaign sought out and got.
Larkin, 33, was not a random primary gadfly. A former field organizer on Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign and a union organizer, he ran on expanding Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and ending U.S. military aid to Israel — replacing it, he argued, with an arms embargo and support for a one-state solution with equal rights for all residents. He called Israel a “religious supremacist” state and backed prosecuting Israeli officials for alleged war crimes. His coalition eventually drew endorsements from nearly forty organizations and more than a dozen national and local figures, including former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), the ex-congressman ousted in his own 2024 primary, and headline fundraising help from Piker.
None of it closed the money gap. Open Secrets tallies put AIPAC’s direct contribution alone at $667,200 of Moskowitz’s roughly $2.5 million campaign fund, for an overall fundraising advantage over Larkin that outlets pegged at roughly 11 to 1. Moskowitz also declined a joint debate invitation Larkin’s campaign had sought — a point the Sun-Sentinel’s editorial board cited when it declined to endorse him, criticizing what it called a “lack of respect for voters.”
Larkin conceded gracefully. “We built a popular movement and organizing infrastructure that will outlast one single campaign,” he said, adding that “my desire to keep this seat out of Scott Singer’s hands is stronger” than his disagreements with Moskowitz — a reference to the Republican former Boca Raton mayor Moskowitz will face in November, in a district Florida Republicans redrew to be more competitive for the general election.
The condolences post wasn’t an isolated jab. In an interview with Politico’s Playbook after the primary, Moskowitz went further, calling Democratic Socialists of America members “anti-American at their core” and questioning whether party colleagues sympathetic to the group should hold classified access at all.
“People who have said anti-American things and have said things that are pro-Russian and pro-China, should they really get a security clearance?”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, interview with Politico's Playbook, excerpted by Mediaite — Aug. 19, 2026
He capped it with a challenge to his own party — “Democrats shouldn’t play hide the Piker now” — and ran through a list of Piker’s past statements: that Piker has dressed up online as former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, has called himself unpatriotic, and has said the United States “deserved” the September 11 attacks. Moskowitz framed the fight in explicitly religious terms of his own: Piker, he said, “targeted me because of my faith, and because I’m pro-Israel.”
Piker used his own stream to argue Moskowitz had the strategy backwards. “Stop that game,” he said. “If you don’t differentiate yourself from the Republicans, you’re basically serving your existing constituents to the Republicans.” His argument: a Democrat who spends a primary-night victory lap attacking a left-wing streamer, in a district Republicans just redrew to be more competitive, is picking the wrong fight with the general election five months away.
Moskowitz’s win wasn’t the only data point from August 18. In Florida’s Democratic Senate primary the same night, DSA-aligned state Rep. Angie Nixon (D) upset Alexander Vindman 55.7 percent to 44.3 percent, despite being outraised roughly 16-to-1 — the inverse of the Moskowitz-Larkin money gap, and a real breakthrough for the party’s socialist wing on a night that otherwise went against it. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-20), another longtime pro-Israel Jewish Democrat, also won her own primary that night, with roughly 45.6 percent in a crowded field.
SleazeBag Vindman loses tonight to a Radical Left Lunatic. How cool is that??? President DJT
Same primary night, different race — this post referenced the Nixon-Vindman Senate primary, not the Moskowitz-Piker exchange. No verified Truth Social post specifically addressing Moskowitz or Piker had surfaced as of publication.
The Piker fight inside the party didn’t start on primary night. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), who chairs the New Democrat Coalition, wrote on X back in March that Piker “is an unapologetic antisemite” and warned that Democrats “risk losing our credibility to condemn those on the right who traffic in bigotry, antisemitism, and hate” if members of Congress kept “platforming” him. Five months later, Moskowitz was making a version of the same argument — just louder, and on primary night.
Moskowitz’s own account of the race wasn’t entirely clean. He told reporters Larkin had run against him “solely on my religion” — a claim the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s editorial board rated “demonstrably untrue” in the same piece where it declined to endorse him. Larkin’s own platform — an arms embargo on Israel, an end to military aid, support for a one-state solution — gave Moskowitz plenty of non-religious material to run against; reducing the race to faith alone erased Larkin’s actual policy argument, whatever one thinks of it.
None of that changes the numbers. Moskowitz won by 27 points in a primary his own campaign fought as a proxy war against Piker and the DSA, in a district Florida Republicans redrew to be more competitive for the general election against Singer. What he chose to do with that win — condolences to a streamer before thanks to his own voters, then a cable-ready riff on security clearances for “anti-American” Democrats — says less about Piker than it does about where a two-term Democratic incumbent decided the fight was worth having.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL-25) beat back a DSA-backed primary challenge by 27 points on Aug. 18, 2026, then used his first public words to mock Hasan Piker rather than thank the voters who renominated him — and followed up days later by calling DSA members “anti-American at their core” and questioning their security clearances. The same night, DSA-aligned Angie Nixon (D) beat Alexander Vindman despite a 16-to-1 fundraising gap, and the Sun-Sentinel rated Moskowitz’s claim that Larkin ran “solely” on religion as false. The intra-party fight over Piker and the DSA isn’t resolved by one primary; it just moved to the next one.
