Zohran Mamdani hand-picked three socialist congressional candidates last week and all three of them won.
Now Florida Republicans are sounding the alarm that the same playbook is coming to their state in November.
What they revealed in Davie this weekend should have every conservative off the couch and heading to the polls.
The Socialist Surge Is Not a Fringe Anymore
Mamdani – the socialist mayor of New York City who wants city-owned grocery stores, rent freezes, and the abolition of ICE – watched all three of his picks sweep their primaries last Tuesday.
Claire Valdez beat a sitting progressive congressman by more than twenty points in Brooklyn.
Darializa Avila Chevalier ousted the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Upper Manhattan.
https://twitter.com/AshleyMoodyFL/status/2071226775946862598?s=20
Brad Lander crushed Dan Goldman – the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune – in the 10th District by thirty points.
The Democratic Socialists of America now have more than 100,000 members and chapters in cities across all fifty states.
This is not AOC having a moment in 2018.
This is a movement that spent $9.6 million to win state legislature seats in New York alone – five times what was spent in the same races in 2024 – and won anyway.
Their platform includes scrapping the U.S. Senate, defunding the Defense Department, and replacing the Supreme Court with a judiciary subordinate to Congress.
U.S. Senator Ashley Moody put it plainly at the Sunshine State Showdown in Davie on Saturday.
"They are anarchist psychos who want to destroy this country," Moody said.
She wasn't exaggerating.
Florida Is the Prize in November
Florida Republicans gathered at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood with one message: this state is not safe.
Despite having 1.5 million more registered Republicans than Democrats, the party's own leaders are nervous.
Democrats pulled off two special election wins in Hillsborough and Palm Beach counties just three months ago.
Democrat voter motivation is running 13 points higher than Republican motivation right now – 88 percent versus 75 percent.
A Democrat was elected mayor of Miami for the first time in thirty years.
Florida Republican Party Chair Evan Power told reporters exactly what keeps him up at night.
"We've built the best grassroots organization in America," Power said. "But it's a concern. We've got to motivate our guys to go vote."
The man Republicans are counting on to hold the governor's mansion is Byron Donalds – a Trump-endorsed congressman from Naples who opened his remarks with a video clip of the late Charlie Kirk endorsing his candidacy.
https://twitter.com/ByronDonalds/status/2070663163184341044?s=20
Donalds spent his time at the podium warning voters about what's coming from the other side.
"He's going to campaign in the most boring way possible," Donalds said of Democrat gubernatorial candidate David Jolly.
He compared Jolly to Abigail Spanberger – the former congresswoman who ran as a reasonable moderate in Virginia, won the governorship, and immediately started dismantling every conservative reform Glenn Youngkin had built.
"They are going to sound very nice, but they are going to be very radical," Donalds said.
He's right about the playbook.
What Happens If Republicans Stay Home
Hugh Hewitt said it directly in a Fox News column this week: the DSA is executing a three-act takeover of the Democratic Party.
Act one was Obama wiping out an entire generation of Democrat moderates through the shellackings of 2010, 2014, and 2016.
Act two was Bernie Sanders and AOC making socialism mainstream.
Act three is Mamdani and his network of endorsed candidates spreading that model from New York to Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.
Florida Republicans understand this playbook – and they understand they are the last major firewall.
https://twitter.com/AshleyMoodyFL/status/2070933142911779045?s=20
Sarasota County Republican Party Chairman Jack Brill said it plainly: this is not going to be a twenty-point blowout year.
The polling confirms it.
Depending on which survey you believe, Jolly is either trailing Donalds by five or leading him by four – in a state Ron DeSantis won by nineteen points four years ago.
If Florida Democrats can hold their enthusiasm advantage through November, everything the Republican Party spent a decade building in this state is at risk.
That's not hyperbole.
That's the math.
The socialists figured out how to win deep blue America.
Their moderate allies figured out how to make socialism look like common sense.
And Republican voters in Florida – and everywhere else – are going to have to decide whether a Saturday afternoon rally is enough to get them off the couch in November.
Sources:
- Mitch Perry, "At FL GOP summit, Republicans invoke fear of Democratic 'socialists' to inspire troops," Florida Phoenix, June 28, 2026.
- Hugh Hewitt, "Democrats' hard-left DSA march is no longer on the fringe," Fox News, June 25, 2026.
- "Byron Donalds' Chances of Winning Florida Governor's Seat, New Poll Shows," Newsweek, June 2026.
- "Florida 2026 Poll: Donalds Leads GOP Primary for Governor," Emerson College Polling, April 2, 2026.
- "NY Primary Results: DSA Set to Pick Up 6+ Seats in Albany," New York Focus, June 24, 2026.
- "Florida Governor's Race – May 2026," Stetson University Center for Public Opinion Research, May 2026.
