No. 2 finisher in Broward’s Supervisor of Elections race rules out congressional run

Chad Klitzman has Obama administration cred, Ivy League degrees and an impressive showing on his first try for elected office.

But the young lawyer said he’s decided not to run for the seat that Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch will be vacating at the end of his seventh term. Klitzman had been on a list of possible candidates poised to make a run to represent Florida’s 22nd Congressional District.

“I got a lot of encouraging feedback and I had to weigh that against some stuff happening in my personal and professional life,” said Klitzman, who is a graduate of Cypress Bay High School in Weston. “… I had to weigh all those things together and ultimately concluded it wasn’t the right time for me, not to say it wouldn’t be the right time at some point in the future.”

In the heavily Democratic district that straddles Palm Beach and Broward counties, whoever wins the Democratic nomination for the seat is considered a shoo-in for the job. So far, Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat, is the only major figure who’s gotten in the game since Deutch upended the South Florida political world with the announcement he was leaving Congress to become the CEO of the American Jewish Committee.

Moskowitz was first elected to the Parkland City Commission while he was still in law school. He represented northwest Broward County in the Legislature when Gov. Ron DeSantis asked him to serve as the director the state’s Division of Emergency Management, where he hit national headlines as the state’s “Master of Disaster.” He presided over hurricanes, the roll-out of the state’s response to COVID-19 and then hurricanes during COVID-19.

Democratic Sen. Gary Farmer of Fort Lauderdale, Republican Rep. Chip LaMarca of Lighthouse Point and Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis are among those who have publicly said they are weighing a run for the seat but have not yet indicated their decision.

As an out gay man, Klitzman could have been the first LGBTQ representative to Congress from Florida.

Klitzman graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 and earned his law degree with honors from Columbia Law School three years later. He worked in President Barack Obama’s White House in the fall of 2014, working in the East Wing, coordinating events on the White House grounds, according to a questionnaire he completed for the Sun Sentinel.

He first ran to be the Broward County Supervisor of Elections in 2020 and came within 607 votes — or .3%. He bested some veteran politicians who got in that race, but ultimately lost to Joe Scott after a recount.

He currently serves on the board of the Broward County Democratic Party Jewish Caucus.

“I don’t have any other political plans at this time, but I’m still very involved in the community,” he said.