GOP congressional hopeful Anna Paulina Luna is feeling confident about winning the Florida seat that she lost by only single digits in 2020 to Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist, who is now seeking to be governor of the state once again.
While the congressional lines of the redrawn district remain unclear, the 32-year-old Air Force veteran said she believes that the political climate will drive swing voters toward Republicans in the fall. Luna said on the campaign trail that gas prices, inflation, and the Biden administration’s handling of foreign policy have been major sources of concern.
“The No.1 issue is gas prices, the second-biggest issue is people don’t want to go to war with Russia. And those two issues are not issues even 10 months ago that I think we could have anticipated being as intense as they are now,” she told the Washington Examiner in an interview.
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“I think that the more that this continues, and the more that people realize that, you know, your vote does hold weight, and elections have consequences … I think people are going to vote based on what I’m seeing from people that I never thought would be engaged in elections at all,” she said. “You take one look, you’re like, ‘They’re not voters’ — these people are showing up to the polls in November, and they’re going to vote in favor of whoever the Republican is because they want lower gas prices.”
Luna said that she did not initially set out to get into politics, having joined the military to pay for college and briefly considering medical school before ultimately deciding to work for Turning Point USA. The Florida Republican said she concluded that she could make more of an impact through policy than as a medical doctor after getting involved with nonprofit groups to help military families.
“I met my husband, and then, in 2014, he got shot in Afghanistan, and that’s actually how I started getting political. At the time, I was using social media, which our age range communicates largely on, to talk about post-traumatic stress disorder. I was in the military, I’ve gone through hundreds of PowerPoints talking about PTSD, but really, until you go through it with your family member, or you see what happens with the long-term impacts of war …” she said.
Luna said that through her work with nonprofit organizations, combating human trafficking became a major issue area that played a role in her decision to seek public office.
“One of the nonprofits I came across was called Veterans for Child Rescue. They work with Our Rescue, one of the biggest … anti-trafficking organizations in the world. I started realizing that there was an issue with human trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico border. And so that’s how I got political. I started using my social media to talk about it, I got a lot of pushback,” she said.
“I’m a second-generation, half-Hispanic woman, and, because I’m lighter-skinned, a lot of people would tell me that I was whitewashed, too white to be Hispanic, etc., and I realized that they were only saying that because they weren’t actually informed of what was truly happening,” she said. “So I started self-educating … I realized that there’s a huge problem, and I wanted to help fix it.”
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Luna said she would like to sit on the Veterans Affairs Committee, as she is interested in reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs.
While Luna faces a crowded primary in the race to be the nominee, polling has shown her with a significant lead for the nomination, and she has managed to secure key endorsements from former President Donald Trump, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York, and House Judiciary ranking member Jim Jordan of Ohio. She has also maintained an edge over her opponents in terms of fundraising, having recently announced she brought in $400,000 in the first quarter and almost $1.5 million this cycle.
“We strongly stand by the endorsement. She’s working hard, she’s raised the money, I think she’s gonna win both in the primary and the general,” Stefanik told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
Despite President Joe Biden narrowly outperforming Trump in the district in 2020 and Crist being on the ticket in his gubernatorial race, Luna said she stands by her conservative roots and doesn’t plan to shy away from Trump’s endorsement.
“As far as I’m concerned, what I’m very big on is that I might be Republican, but I’m willing to talk with you, and I’m willing to talk about solutions. And actually, for the first time in a really long time, Pinellas County actually just swung over to a Republican county, and the state of Florida is actually now a Republican state. So we’re seeing this massive exodus of people that left California, New York, and actually came down to Florida and are now voting Republican,” she said.
“So I think as long as I talk about my platform, I’m very honored to have the support of President Trump,” she said. “And I’m not shying away from that. I think that once people hear my message, hear what I have to offer, and realize, you know, she’s the real deal. She’s one of us, and she’s here to fight for us.”
