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TAMPA - Anna Paulina Luna fended off political attacks and a last-minute fundraising surge by her Democratic challenger to win a second term in Congress Tuesday night, defeating Whitney Fox, who hoped to flip the Republican-leaning seat for the Democrats.
Luna defeated Fox 55% to 45% to win re-election to Florida’s 13th U.S. Congressional District, which covers most of Pinellas County.
Fox campaigned hard against Luna, and in the last quarter erased Luna’s advantage in campaign funds. The Democratic Congressional Committee had targeted the district for its "Red to Blue’ program – seeing Luna as one of a handful of vulnerable Republicans in the House.
Luna won the seat in 2022, defeating Democrat Eric Lynn, 53% to 45%. In 2020, she ran an unsuccessful campaign against incumbent Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida who served in the House as a Democrat. According to her House bio, she is the first Mexican American woman to represent Florida in the U.S. House.
On issues, Luna is an outspoken critic of abortion and a strong supporter of gun rights. She is a consistent voice against additional funds for Ukraine, voting against $60 billion in military aid for the country in 2034. She has co-sponsored the "Ukraine Fatigue Resolution", which calls for suspending U.S. Aid to Ukraine.
In September, Luna was among 82 House Republicans who voted against a stop-gap bill to fund the Federal Government through December 20. The bill ultimately passed preventing a government shutdown. While the bill funds the entire government, it included $20 billion in disaster relief funds for FEMA. That opened the door to political attacks claiming Luna voted "against FEMA funding". Luna has called for Congress to address FEMA funds as a separate matter. In October, she co-sponsored a bi-partisan bill to allocate an additional $15 billion dollars in FEMA disaster relief funds.
According to the biography on her official House web page, Luna was born in California to a single mom in 1989. After graduating from high school in Los Angeles, Luna joined the Air Force, where she began studying for college. She graduated from the University of West Florida in 2017 with a degree in Biology.
District 13 covers most of Pinellas County including Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, Seminole, East Lake, Oldsmar, Gulfport and a small portion of St. Petersburg. According to the state’s Division of Elections, the district had 205,211 registered Republicans and 150,684 registered Democrats as of July 22, 2024.
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