Jesse Scheckner
Former Palm Beach County Mayor Robert Weinroth says America has a lot of problems, and Democrats — particularly U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz — aren’t doing much to fix them.
Weinroth just qualified as one of several Republican candidates seeking to unseat Moskowitz this year in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District. He believes he’s uniquely suited to the task.
Until 2022, when he lost his Palm Beach Commission seat to a Republican newcomer, Weinroth was a Democrat himself; though by his telling, it was largely in name only. His beliefs leaned right. He was pro-development, pro-business. He balked at proposals to expand entitlements and “handouts,” favoring policies that broadened opportunities for people to improve their lives and become more self-sufficient — equality of opportunity, not outcome.
He switched parties shortly after his loss, which he blamed less on his opponent’s political aptitude and more on a growing assessment among voters, even those in traditionally blue South Florida, that the Democratic Party had “veered off course.”
“The Democratic Party sort of tolerated me, but I was not embracing many of its platforms. In fact, my eyes would sort of water as some of the policies were being enunciated,” he told Florida Politics.
“I kept my mouth shut, but I always felt like a square peg in a round hole as a Democrat. Most people looked at me and winked, like, ‘Yeah, we know you’re a Republican under the skin.’”
Still, Weinroth endorsed Moskowitz for CD 23 in 2022. He also endorsed Nikki Fried as the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial candidate, though he said he voted for Gov. Ron DeSantis in the General Election that year and for Donald Trump in 2020.
Weinroth’s campaign website features a photo of him and the former President, who has still not acknowledged he fairly lost four years ago. Asked about it by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in February, Weinroth said there were “problems with the election, but I’m certainly not going to question the process.”
He gave DeSantis an “A” rating as a Governor, especially for his response to the pandemic. And it was the Governor’s confidence in Moskowitz — a former House lawmaker whom DeSantis appointed in 2019 as Florida’s Emergency Management Director and in 2021 as a Broward County Commissioner — that earned him Weinroth’s nod two years ago.
“I hoped he’d be able to work against what I’ve seen as a very leftward march in the Democratic Party,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’ve watched as he’s tried to work with the radical ‘Squad’ and extremists in the party to make any progress like that impossible. I don’t think within that party that Jared can make a difference.”
Weinroth also pointed to Moskowitz’s sharing of an “inappropriate” meme on X of Joe Biden ogling actress Sydney Sweeny’s cleavage and news he is considering a run for Governor in 2026 as proof that the first-term Congressman lacks the focus and restraint necessary for work in Washington.
He attributed CD 23’s six-candidate GOP field as an indication he isn’t alone in feeling that way.
“I think they smell blood in the water,” he said.
Policies, priorities and probabilities
A 71-year-old lawyer and former owner of a medical supplies company, Weinroth grew up in New York City and lived in Boston and New Jersey before relocating to South Florida in the mid-1980s.
He won a seat on the Boca Raton City Council in 2014 and served for four years until his election to the Palm Beach Commission. There, he focused on land use and transportation issues and served as the body’s elected Mayor.
Voter records show Weinroth switched parties in early 2023, two months after he lost a re-election bid for the County Commission. He briefly considered running for the Palm Beach School Board but filed this past January to run in CD 23.
His campaign website includes plans to cut taxes if elected and stop “woke Democrats” from turning America into a “Socialist nightmare” — an agenda, it says, “Moskowitz refuses to confront.”
But speaking with Florida Politics, Weinroth pointed to immigration reform and border security as his top priority.
He said he agreed “100%” with DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s taxpayer-funded programs to send migrants who illegally cross over the Mexico-Texas border to so-called “sanctuary cities” like Martha’s Vineyard and Sacramento.
“Illegal immigration is the most important issue on the table right now, more important than pocketbook issues,” he said. “We have an immigration policy that is in tatters. Millions of people are just wandering around without any sort of documentation to get jobs and earn a living in this country. It’s a disaster.”
He cited national defense and the economy, including reducing America’s debt, as his second- and third-biggest priorities, respectively.
On guns, he said he supports the right for mentally competent and skilled people to own firearms, but disagreed with Florida’s relatively new law allowing legal gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training.
Weinroth is also a past member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which lobbies governments on behalf of Israel. He and Moskowitz are both Jewish.
He said he’s troubled by anti-Israel sentiment among young people, particularly college-age students, and blamed a decadeslong failure of Israel to convey its message, history and story to the public.
“Even as I was lobbying members of Congress, we were told back then that Israel was not doing a great job of public relations. A lot of the Arab countries were endowing Chairs at universities and finding people coming in with very pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel lessons. Now we’ve reaped what we’ve sowed,” he said.
“A lot of these students now have the view that Israel is an apartheid state, that Palestinians have somehow been abused by this terrible Israel. That’s really unfortunate. And Since Oct. 7, I think everyone recognizes appeasements didn’t work. The fact that we’re not talking about the atrocities that occurred in the attack but only about Israel’s taking advantage of their superior weaponry is ridiculous.”
AIPAC has endorsed Moskowitz, who has been a leading voice in support of aid to the country and Israel’s right to defend itself.
CD 23 covers Boca Raton, West Boca, northwest Broward County and coastal Broward south to Fort Lauderdale. In 2022, Moskowitz took 51.6% of the vote to defeat Palm Beach GOP Committeeman Joe Budd for the right to succeed fellow then-Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, who left office to lead the American Jewish Council.
According to Florida Atlantic University political scientist Kevin Wagner, any Republican running in the district has an uphill battle. He told the Sun-Sentinel it’s not an impossible prospect, “but challenging.”
Cook Political Report, meanwhile, gave CD 23 a D+5 rating, indicating that the district performed 5 points more Democratic than the nation in the past two presidential election cycles. That makes it among the most flippable districts in the state.
Moskowitz won the district by a 4.8-percentage-point margin two years ago, when DeSantis won it by 1 point. He won the state by more than 19 points.
In terms of fundraising, Moskowitz is a goliath. Last quarter, he added $474,000 to his re-election war chest through donations from progressive groups and hundreds of personal checks collected largely by Democratic fundraising platforms ActBlue and AIPAC.
By April 1, he had $614,000 left to spend.
Weinroth’s first-quarter gains were more than the combined fundraising of all his GOP opponents. And of the $223,000 he raised since entering the race on Jan. 2, $100,000 was self-loaned.
According to the Division of Elections, other GOP candidates who qualified for the CD 23 race include businessman Steven Chess, counterterrorism expert and nonprofit executive Joe Kaufman, Navy veteran Carla Spalding, insurance executive Darlene Swaffer, pastor Joe Thelusca, and Gary Barve, whom the Sun-Sentinel reported had dropped out of the race in February.
A seventh GOP candidate, Army vet Rafael Ortiz, filed to run in November but didn’t file any campaign finance reports and failed to qualify.
The Primary Election is on Aug. 20, followed by the General Election on Nov. 5.
2 comments
Michael K
May 2, 2024 at 8:22 am
As I recall, a recent bipartisan border security deal had everything Republicans wanted. It was on the table and was certain to pass both houses of Congress. Everything Republicans wanted. Everything. But then a twice-impeached former president who lost re-election by more than 7 million votes told the party he now controls like a mafia boss to “say no,” because complaining about immigration is all he has to run on.
So cry me a river, Mr. Weinroth. And being “woke” is not against the law.
Dont Say FLA
May 3, 2024 at 3:07 pm
We have an immigration policy that is in tatters.
And did Mr Weinroth send a thank you note to Unelected House Speaker Trump for keeping that old G0P line in play after Trumps big blunder, surrendering the G0P’s old lines about abortion?
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