Meet Anna Paulina Luna, The Firebrand Conservative Who Wasn’t ‘Supposed To Win’  

Anna Paulina Luna was a standout in the red wave that swept over Florida on Tuesday night, flipping a blue seat in the 13th district by a healthy eight-point margin.

The 33-year-old firebrand conservative, who proudly coins herself an “outsider,” spoke to The Daily Wire about her candidacy, her background and views, and former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Luna, during part one of our two-part interview.

“I am only doing this because we’re in deep trouble right now,” Luna told us about her congressional run.

“Initially, I realized that the media was a huge problem, that they weren’t being forthcoming with the American people about really what was happening at the border with immigration,” she said. “If I wanted to change the national discussion, I would have to do it as a legislator. I had to help change the national narrative by doing that.”

Luna lost by five points against former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist when she first ran for the same seat in 2020, though the congresswoman-elect says she was expected to lose by 17 points that cycle.

“I realized when I ran the first time how bad the swamp really is,” she explained. “And so I understood that candidates like myself are not supposed to win. You know, I’m not from D.C. — I haven’t served as a lobbyist; I’m not an attorney — not that there’s anything wrong with attorneys, but there’s just … a lot of people that groom their entire lives to do this. And those are the ones who usually are at the Hill, and a lot of what happens at the Hill is not really connected to the American people.”

Asked if she had long-prepared or groomed herself for politics, Luna gave off a laugh and quipped, “I would’ve done a lot of things differently.”

“You don’t know how it really works, right? So, you’re supposed to drive this car, but you don’t really know how the car drives,” Luna said, when asked about a disadvantage she had as an outsider. “The best way I can put it is that, you know, I had to work three times as hard to raise all of my money, because most of my funding came from grassroots donations; my [average] donation being $13. … There’s just certain money I won’t take, and I’m very vocal about that. So, you know, they tried to starve you out, basically.”

Her win this time around came with a big ground-game. “I was out-spent two-to-one in the primary, and then out-spent 12 million-to-one in the general election,” Luna said. “So, despite having them both collectively spend over $15 million against me, I still won. And that’s because I had a very strong grassroots infrastructure.”

Knocked 50,000 doors
Made 89,000 phone calls
Outspent 2:1 in primary
Outspent 12:1 in general
Today we made history.
My name is Anna Paulina Luna and I am going to be the next representative for FL-13!
Thank you Pinellas! I look forward to serving you in DC!

— Anna Paulina Luna (@VoteAPL) November 9, 2022

Luna, who’s of Mexican and German descent, didn’t have the easiest upbringing. On a campaign page, the conservative details her parents, though never married, separating when Luna was a young girl. Luna’s father, who died in January, suffered from addiction and was out of the picture during her childhood.

“It does influence how I look at things, especially from a legislation perspective,” Luna said of her past experiences. “Everything from gun rights, to what’s happening with immigration, to welfare: I look at it through a certain lens because I’ve had this very abnormal upbringing.”

“I’ll take gun rights for example,” she continued. “I survived an armed robbery, someone broke into my house while I was there; I had a gang shooting in one of the six high school campuses I attended. I never thought it was guns that were the problem, I thought it was people.”

“I grew up in California, so I was around a demographic of people who were largely involved in gang culture and targeted because of the fact that they were here illegally,” Luna said. “They’re forced to basically work in these shadows of society, and that’s not good for anyone. It hurts people on both sides.”

“I’m second-generation American,” Luna added. “My grandparents came here legally, but it’s generally not cared to cater to legal immigration, especially when there’s a lot of good people that are waiting to come here and do it the right way. It’s just a different perspective, the way that I look at things.”

Luna had an unusual route to politics, too. She voted for the first time in 2016, for President Donald Trump — who would later endorse her for Florida-13. Before that, she wasn’t “politically awake,” yet. “I was raised in a Democrat household,” she told us.

“What the media is trying to do is try to just say that