When most people think of Florida, they do not think of a progressive political landscape. But Oliver Larkin (he/him/his) is trying to change this. A Democratic Socialist, Oliver has many years of experience in progressive political organizing and advocacy and wants to bring change to his home in South Florida (he grew up in Fort Lauderdale) which is Ground Zero for the MAGA movement. When he and his wife Sandra moved back to South Florida in 2022, they discovered astronomical rental rates as they bounced around Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and Deerfield Beach, looking for affordable housing. Oliver is centering his campaign around Medicare for All, a $25 minimum wage, and universal child care.

Where are you based?
Broward County, Florida.

What is your position/what position are you running for?
Candidate for Congress, U.S. House of Representatives, Florida District 23.

How would you briefly summarize your platform?
I am running to win Medicare for All, a $25 minimum wage, and abolish and prosecute ICE. Our campaign is fighting for bold universal economic policies and desperately needed democratic reforms to defeat authoritarianism and win true democracy.

What inspired you to run?
I believe our current congressman Jared Moskowitz’s brand of corporate-funded politics is the reason why the Florida Democratic Party has struggled so tremendously in recent years. Within days of the 2024 election, Moskowitz blamed dozens of his fellow House Democrats for why we lost—at the same time he was joining Elon Musk’s DOGE Caucus as the first Democrat in the entire country. Moskowitz is a two-time appointee of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and was the only Florida Democrat to vote for the Laken Riley Act, the pro-ICE immigration bill that Trump signed as his first law upon returning to office to supercharge his detention and deportation regime. His votes to censure Rashida Tlaib and Al Green, attacks on progressives including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar, and support for genocide brought me to a point where I felt he had to be primaried, and if I didn’t do it, nobody else would.

What change are you hoping to bring to your district and country?
I want to show our district and the country that we can have principled leadership that rejects the corrupting influence of corporate PACs and truly fights for working class people, not special interests. As a democratic socialist running to represent a swing district in a red state, I want to show that our progressive platform’s viability isn’t restricted to deep blue areas, but is the path forward to build a governing majority for Democrats nationwide.

What do you consider to be your major accomplishments so far?
I was among the Bernie 2016 campaign’s first half-dozen hires in New Hampshire. I helped lead a successful unionization effort with the NewsGuild-CWA on the organizing committee at the digital advertising agency the Bernie campaign used, which has fundamentally changed campaign and nonprofit labor relations in the last decade. Our victory has led to unionization of the DNC, DCCC, Bernie 2020, and Biden/Harris 2024, along with many additional marketing firms, nonprofits, and campaigns at the local, state, and federal levels.

What do you feel are the most important issues right now, why, and how do you plan to tackle them?
We need to abolish and prosecute ICE, end U.S. support for genocide, and fundamentally reform our democracy. The pre-Trump status quo is no longer acceptable. ICE has become an authoritarian secret police force that is violating Americans’ constitutional rights. We need a larger reorganization that repeals the changes implemented by the Homeland Security Act, the Patriot Act, and other post-9/11 legislation that undermines our civil liberties. We need to end all U.S. funding for Israel, which is guilty of genocide, apartheid, and other human rights violations. Our support for Israel breaks both U.S. and international law against funding gross human rights violations. Congress must also address the criminality of the Trump administration with impeachment inquiries of Trump, members of his cabinet, and the federal judiciary, and pass pro-democracy reforms to expand voting rights, get money out of politics, and change the makeup of the House, Senate, and judiciary with DC statehood, judicial term limits, and expanding the House of Representatives.

America is extremely divided these days. How would you hope to bridge that divide with your constituents to better unite Americans?
Florida has voted for progressive ballot measures even while electing Republicans in recent years. Large majorities of Floridians have voted to restore voting rights to over 1 million Floridians, raise the minimum wage to $15, legalize recreational marijuana, implement rent control, and guarantee the right to abortion. I would bridge the divide with a working class orientation toward the policies that clear majorities of Americans support, including raising the minimum wage, passing Medicare for All, and ending U.S. support for genocide. Many libertarian-minded conservatives have a lot of overlap with progressives on protecting civil liberties and putting up guardrails to authoritarianism. By rejecting corporate PAC money and supporting a ban on congressional stock trading, I would also be able to directly address political corruption that affects both political parties.

How do you see your unique identity and background to be an asset to you in office?
I am a product of the elite academic institutions that have produced generations of the American ruling class and can counter their failed arguments with my own firsthand experience. I’m a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, the alma mater of Mark Zuckerberg, and come from a background where I was raised among the wealthy, conservative elite. This political and economic system has created new generations of downwardly mobile millennial and Gen Z Americans for the first time in American history, while billionaires like Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos continue on a trajectory of becoming the first trillionaires in world history within the next few years. The American Dream our generation was raised on has been taken from us to fund war, genocide, and billionaire wealth. I’m fighting to take it back.

What is your motto in life?
How you spend your days is how you spend your life, and for over a decade, I’ve woken up every morning and fought for a more progressive United States of America.

Where can we find out more about you?
Our campaign website, and on social media: TikTok & X; Instagram/Threads; Facebook/YouTube; BlueSky

Our Favorite Progressive Candidates in 2026 - Oliver Larkin, Florida's 23rd Congressional District