By james art 
Nominated for Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo raised and spent more than $1 million this cycle, though most of the money did not go toward his re-election effort in Senate District 37.
That’s because he’s running for re-election against the Republicans Imtiaz Mohammedwhich has not raised a single outside dollar, has virtually no offline campaign presence, and suffers from a severe case of Japaneseism.
Even if that weren’t the case and Pizzo faced a more politically consistent challenger with the support of Florida’s GOP machine, he would still be heavily favored to win. Pizzo, 48, among Florida’s most respected statewide Democrats. And he presides legislative delegation of Broward County, through which the mostly blue area stretches.
A former Miami-Dade County district attorney, Pizzo won his Senate seat in 2018 by unseating a Democratic incumbent and won re-election in 2022 unopposed. Last year party members they unanimously chose him to lead them to the Senate for the term 2024-26.
Despite Republican supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature, he has successfully sponsored several measures over the past two sessions to increasing penalties for deadly stunt driving and expanding the ability of civil servants to inspect prison facilities unannounced.
He also sponsored legislation to address problems with Florida’s Surfside-inspired condo safety law, which still needs additional fixingbut criticized the relatively new requirements as tragically late. During the last Senate vote in March, Pizzo noted that he did filed a bill five years agobefore the Champlain Towers South apartment complex collapsed and killed 98 people, which included many of the changes lawmakers later passed.
Pizzo accused Republican lawmakers of ignoring the measure. “Ninety-eight people died in my district because of partisanship,” he said.
In recent sessions, Pizzo has taken the approach of prioritizing progress over “pride of authorship,” yielding to other lawmakers bills he initially carried but failed to pass. Getting credit for the bills is less important, he said, than seeing them succeed.
Example: After a ban on the deliberate release of balloons in the open causing significant damage to aquatic organismshe surrendered of the Republicans this year and that passed.
Pizzo tends to offer prepared comments in the Senate and in committee rooms.
This year, he held GOP lawmakers accountable for pushing a disputed couplet of accounts preventing local governments from setting labor standards, including requiring heat protection and higher wages for employees of businesses seeking government contracts. “Let’s wage a war on poverty, not on poor people,” he said of the proposals.
Ahead of the 2023 passage of Florida’s illegal carry law, Pizzo emphasized what he sees as double standard by offering an amendment to allow guns in legislative sessions.
After the bill’s sponsor asked that the amendment be struck down, Pizzo complained that the law as it stands would allow “extra guns at Publix, where my wife and kids are,” but not at the Liberty Dome, where lawmakers , who approved the change work.
“You don’t believe what you’re selling,” he said. “It’s incredibly hypocritical.”
In 2022 when Ron DeSantis began ferrying undocumented immigrants to Democratic states as part of the taxpayer-funded “migrant flights” program, Pizzo sue the governor and other government officials on the matter.
But he is far from siding with Republicans on issues he believes in. He was one of three Democrats in the Senate last year, support the reduction of the electoral threshold for the death penalty after a jury gave the Parkland shooter life in prison instead of the death penalty. He also supported legislation creating a 25-foot restricted area around first responders, arguing that even greater distance may be advisable.
As of November 2022, Pizzo has raised more than $1.2 million through his campaign account and political committee, New opportunity Florida. As of Oct. 31, he had $53,500 left.
Most of his spending has gone to helping Democratic candidates make their races more competitive in a state the Republican Party now holds more than 1 million voters advantage.
He has given $1 million to the Florida Democratic Party and its state and local affiliates. In August, he won $30,000 Florida’s Future Leadersa student-led political committee works for conversion Senate District 3 and Districts 37 and 91.
Organizations supporting Pizzo this cycle include the Florida AFL-CIO, SEIU Florida, Metro Broward Firefighters, Broward Police Benevolent Association, Florida Fraternal Order of Police and Broward Deputy Sheriffs Association.
Mohammad, 58, runs a multisite salon business in Miramar, where he lives. He was a registered Democrat until two years ago and sought seats in the Florida House of Representatives in 2018 and 2020, winning 21% and 35% of the vote in each attempt, respectively.
Former supporter of the US Senator. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, Mohammad expressed similar enthusiasm for members of the so-called “Squad” in Congress, including representatives of the U.S. Democratic Party. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tliab. In 2020, he supported To Joe Biden campaign for president.
But by mid-2022, he had changed his mind, changing his registration to Republican. In a Facebook post on June 29, 2022, he criticized his former party for supporting “homosexuality and same-sex marriage,” which he found inconsistent with his Muslim beliefs.
In another post after the first presidential debate this year, he argued that Republicans were better suited to achieving a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Gaza conflict, urging readers to “VOTE REPUBLICAN” because Donald Trump “IT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN BY STOPPING WARS !!!!!!!”
Muhammad often claims online that he is “proud to be american.” But he told Florida Politics in July that he stood by a videotaped statement he made in late 2018 that America was “run away from hate” and “the most uneducated nation in the world”.
Aside from the $2,100 he gave to his campaign, most of which covered a state qualifying tax, Muhammad has not raised a cent.
SD 37 covers the South Florida coast from Sunny Isles Beach in Miami-Dade County to Deerfield Beach in Broward County.
The district leans Democratic, according to Florida Voter Data. Thirty-nine percent of Broward’s 267,506 voters in the area are registered Democrats, compared to 29% who are Republicans and 32% who are third-party or non-third-party voters. Republicans lead by 1 point in Miami-Dade, of which 51,335 of the county’s voters live in SD 37.
In 2020, the district swung 5 percentage points for Biden, according to MCI cards. Voters there sided with DeSantis by 0.8 points two years later when they also chose the Democrat Val Demings over the Republican US Senator. Marco Rubio by nearly 3 points.
The general election is on November 5.
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