{"id":1737313,"date":"2022-11-13T20:02:59","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T01:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1737313"},"modified":"2022-11-13T20:03:06","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T01:03:06","slug":"meet-anna-paulina-luna-the-firebrand-conservative-who-wasnt-supposed-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/meet-anna-paulina-luna-the-firebrand-conservative-who-wasnt-supposed-to-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Anna Paulina Luna, The Firebrand Conservative Who Wasn\u2019t \u2018Supposed To Win\u2019 \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmeet-anna-paulina-luna-the-firebrand-conservative-who-wasnt-supposed-to-win%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1737313&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Anna Paulina Luna was a standout in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/republican-red-wave-stops-at-florida-as-initial-midterm-tallies-leave-house-senate-majorities-in-question\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">red wave<\/a> that swept over Florida on Tuesday night,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2022\/11\/08\/us\/elections\/results-florida-us-house-district-13.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">flipping<\/a> a blue seat in the 13th district by a healthy eight-point margin.<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old firebrand conservative, who proudly coins herself an \u201coutsider,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am only doing this because we\u2019re in deep trouble right now,\u201d Luna told us about her congressional run.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInitially, I realized that the media was a huge problem, that they weren\u2019t being forthcoming with the American people about really what was happening at the border with immigration,\u201d she said. \u201cIf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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<em> 17 points <\/em>that cycle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI realized when I ran the first time how bad the swamp really is,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd so I understood that candidates like myself are not supposed to win. You know, I\u2019m not from D.C. \u2014 I haven\u2019t served as a lobbyist; I\u2019m not an attorney \u2014 not that there\u2019s anything wrong with attorneys, but there\u2019s just \u2026 a lot of people that groom their entire lives to do this.\u00a0And 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked if she had long-prepared or groomed herself for politics, Luna gave off a laugh and quipped, \u201cI would\u2019ve done a lot of things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t know how it really works, right? So, you\u2019re supposed to drive this car, but you don\u2019t really know how the car drives,\u201d Luna said, when asked about a disadvantage she had as an outsider. \u201cThe 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. \u2026 There\u2019s just certain money I won\u2019t take, and I\u2019m very vocal about that. So, you know, they tried to starve you out, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her win this time around came with a big ground-game. \u201cI was out-spent two-to-one in the primary, and then out-spent 12 million-to-one in the general election,\u201d Luna said. \u201cSo, despite having them both collectively spend over $15 million against me, I still won. And that\u2019s because I had a very strong grassroots infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Knocked 50,000 doors<br \/>Made 89,000 phone calls <br \/>Outspent 2:1 in primary <br \/>Outspent 12:1 in general <br \/>Today we made history. <br \/>My name is Anna Paulina Luna and I am going to be the next representative for FL-13!<br \/>Thank you Pinellas! I look forward to serving you in DC!<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Anna Paulina Luna (@VoteAPL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VoteAPL\/status\/1590149526332985346?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 9, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Luna, who\u2019s of Mexican and German descent, didn\u2019t have the easiest upbringing. On a campaign page, the conservative <a href=\"https:\/\/www.voteannapaulina.com\/meet-anna\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">details<\/a> her parents, though never married, separating when Luna was a young girl. Luna\u2019s father, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/florida-politics\/2022\/01\/12\/father-of-congressional-candidate-anna-paulina-luna-dies-in-car-crash\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">died<\/a> in January, suffered from addiction and was out of the picture during her childhood.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt does influence how I look at things, especially from a legislation perspective,\u201d Luna said of her past experiences. \u201cEverything from gun rights, to what\u2019s happening with immigration, to welfare: I look at it through a certain lens because I\u2019ve had this very abnormal upbringing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll take gun rights for example,\u201d she continued. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI 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,\u201d Luna said. \u201cThey\u2019re forced to basically work in these shadows of society, and that\u2019s not good for anyone. It hurts people on both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m second-generation American,\u201d Luna added. \u201cMy grandparents came here legally, but it\u2019s generally not cared to cater to legal immigration, especially when there\u2019s a lot of good people that are waiting to come here and do it the right way. It\u2019s just a different perspective, the way that I look at things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Luna had an unusual route to politics, too. She voted for the first time in 2016, for President Donald Trump \u2014 who would later endorse her for Florida-13. Before that, she wasn\u2019t \u201cpolitically awake,\u201d yet. \u201cI was raised in a Democrat household,\u201d she told us.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat the media is trying to do is try to just say that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anna Paulina Luna was a standout in the red wave that swept over Florida on Tuesday night,\u00a0flipping a blue seat in the 13th district by a healthy eight-point margin. The 33-year-old firebrand conservative, who proudly coins herself an \u201coutsider,\u201d spoke to The Daily Wire about her candidacy, her background and views, and former President Donald &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":1737316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1737313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1737313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1737316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1737313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1737313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1737313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}