Background and career
Anna Paulina Luna (née Mayerhofer; born May 6, 1989) is an American politician and Air Force veteran serving as the U.S. representative for Florida's 13th congressional district since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, she is the first Mexican-American woman elected to Congress from Florida. Luna served as airfield management specialist in the Air National Guard from age 19, serving from 2009 to 2014. For her service, she was awarded the Air Force Achievement Medal. Luna graduated from the University of West Florida in 2017. In her first campaign, Luna challenged, and lost to, incumbent Democratic congressman Charlie Crist in 2020. Luna was subsequently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, with the endorsement of then-former president Donald Trump in the Republican primary. Luna was re-elected in 2024. Luna serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Anna Paulina Mayerhofer was born on May 6, 1989, to George Mayerhofer and Monica Todd, an elementary school teacher and stay-at-home mother, in Santa Ana, California. Luna has said that her father raised her to follow Messianic Judaism, an evangelical movement that incorporates Jewish traditions into Protestant Christianity, and that she is "a small fraction Ashkenazi". Members of her extended family have denied this claim, saying her father was Catholic, and that "they were not aware of him practicing any form of Judaism while Luna was growing up". Her mother has said that Luna's father was a Christian who "embraced the Messianic faith" after getting clean from drug addiction. Her grandfather, Heinrich Mayerhofer, identified as Catholic when he immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1954. Her father had Mexican and German ancestry. Her paternal grandmother was born in Hidalgo, Mexico. Her paternal grandfather was born in Germany and was in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Her mother has Mexican-American ancestry, although a maternal great-grandfather was the son of an American immigrant to Mexico and a native of Colima, Mexico. Her two maternal great-grandfathers served in the United States Armed Forces during World War II. Luna's parents never married or lived together; her father had a drug addiction problem, her mother married another man when Luna was nine years old but divorced four years later. Luna was raised in the Orange County cities of Santa Ana, Irvine, and Aliso Viejo, as well as Los Angeles, and has called Santa Monica her hometown. She attended high school in Los Angeles. Luna said that at the age of 10, she found her father's bag of meth. Her maternal grandmother was a long-time heroin user and was HIV positive. By 2020, she (Anna) and her mother (Monica) had chosen the Luna surname as "an homage" to that woman's maiden name. Luna has said that she "grew up in the welfare system", raised by her mother on government assistance with "no family to rely on", and was raised in a "broken home mentality". Luna has said that both she and her mother lacked "a strong extended network of people" who could help care for them, and that she had attended "over six high schools" before graduating. Luna's cousin has said, "The whole family kind of raised her—my dad was a part of her life when she was younger and we all kind of coddled her ... She was always a part of everything, all these family gatherings and activities". Luna's aunt said, "She had everything. What she needed and more ... And not only did [Luna's mother] provide for her, but [Luna's grandfather] did, too." Luna has disputed these accounts, saying that she "barely spent any time with them in her entire life". Luna's mother said that she (Monica) had to rely on welfare for periods of time, especially while she was putting herself through college at the University of California, Irvine, and then at the UCLA School of Law, and that she was the only source of meaningful financial support for the family. Luna's campaign website biography says that throughout her childhood and teenage years, her father "spent time in and out of incarceration", and that she communicated with him "through letters to jail and collect calls". Luna's mother and aunt said that he served several short stints in jail for not paying child support. Luna's mother also said that he spent at least one year in jail for a drug-related charge. Luna's father was sentenced to Orange County jail on at least five different occasions. He was convicted for crimes including carrying a loaded gun in public, violating probation, and driving with a suspended license. He was charged but not convicted for assault and battery and possession of illegal drugs. The drug possession case indicated that Luna's father was in custody around the time of two court appearances. The case information did not specify the length of his confinement; the court proceedings lasted about three months.
Luna served in the U.S. Air Force from 2009 to 2014 as an airfield management specialist, at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and Hurlburt Field in Florida. Her decorations included the Air Force Achievement Medal. She subsequently joined the Oregon Air National Guard. While in the Air Force, she began studying at a local college. She also modeled during this period, appearing in 2013's Sports Illustrated's online site, and briefly worked as a cocktail waitress in a strip club. She later appeared as a swimsuit model in Maxim magazine in 2014. Luna gained a following as an Instagram influencer. Luna said that she experienced a 2010 early morning home invasion by her landlord while stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base. Luna's roommate said she did not remember such an incident. Instead, the roommate recalled a daytime break-in when Luna was not home. A Warrensburg Police Department report described the July 2010 incident as a "burglary not in progress". In 2017, Luna earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of West Florida. Luna became the director of Hispanic engagement for Turning Point USA in 2018. In a November 2018 Fox News segment, she compared Hillary Clinton to herpes, leading the network to cut the segment short and host Rick Leventhal and anchor Arthel Neville to apologize to viewers. In 2020, she appeared at a We Build the Wall event as vice president of Bienvenido, an organization dedicated to conservative Hispanic outreach.
Luna decided to run for Congress in 2018. She entered the Republican primary for Florida's 13th congressional district in September 2019, and Matt Gaetz endorsed her in November 2019. She was also endorsed by Charlie Kirk, Elise Stefanik, Students for Trump, and former mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, Bill Foster. In July 2020, she and her husband purchased a house in St. Petersburg, near MacDill Air Force Base, where her husband was stationed. Luna won the Republican primary, but lost to incumbent Democrat Charlie Crist in the general election.
Luna was elected as the U.S. representative for Florida's 13th congressional district in the 2022 election, defeating Democratic nominee Eric Lynn, a former senior advisor for Barack Obama. Before the Republican primary, another Republican candidate privately threatened to have her assassinated by a hit squad. In June 2021, Luna was granted a temporary stalking injunction against her primary opponent, William Braddock, after a friend of Luna's recorded Braddock threatening to make Luna "disappear" and claiming he had "access to a hit squad, too, Ukrainians and Russians". Braddock dropped out of the race after the judge granted the temporary injunction. The judge dismissed the request for a permanent injunction, saying she found one instance of harassment when the law required two. Donald Trump endorsed Luna, and Marjorie Taylor Greene campaigned for her in Florida. She is the first Mexican-American woman elected to Congress from Florida.
Luna was challenged in the general election by Whitney Fox, a moderate Democrat and former communications director for the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority. Though seen as the only Florida house seat being in striking distance for Democrats, Luna won re-election with 55% of the vote, compared to Fox's 45%.
