Anna Paulina Luna

Anna Paulina Luna (née Mayerhofer; born May 6, 1989) is an American politician and activist who serves in the United States House of Representatives from Florida's 13th congressional district as a member of the Republican Party.

Luna was born in Santa Ana, California, in 1989, and graduated from the University of West Florida in 2017.

Anna Paulina Mayerhofer was born in 1989 to George Mayerhofer, an architect, and Monica Todd, an elementary school teacher and stay-at-home mother, in Santa Ana, California.

She was raised as a Messianic Jew by her father, and is part Ashkenazi Jewish.

Her mother has Mexican-American ancestry and her father has Mexican and German ancestry.

Her paternal grandfather was born in Germany and, according to family, drafted into the Wehrmacht during World War II and two of her maternal great-grandparents also served in the United States Armed Forces during the same war.

Her maternal great-grandfather was an American immigrant to Mexico.

Luna's parents never married; her mother married another man when Luna was about eight years old.

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 has a brother and a sister.

Luna served as an airfield management specialist in the U.S. Air Force from 2009 to 2014, first at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and then at Hurlburt Field in Florida.

For the 118th Congress:

In June 2022, Luna said of the 2020 United States presidential election, "I believe that President Trump won that election, and I do believe that voter fraud occurred."

While enlisted, she appeared in 2013 in SI.com's Friday's P.M. Hot Clicks and briefly worked as a cocktail waitress at the Red Rose Gentlemen's Club, a strip club in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

She later appeared as a "Hometown Hottie" for Fort Walton Beach in Maxim in 2014.

Luna gained a following as an Instagram influencer.

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.

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 St. Petersburg, Florida mayor Bill Foster.

She joined Turning Point USA and unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the U.S. House in 2020.

She was elected in 2022 with the support of Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Luna supported Jim Jordan and Byron Donalds for Speaker in the January 2023 election.

Some of her biographical claims have been disputed.

In 2020 she appeared at a We Build the Wall event as vice president of Bienvenido, an organization dedicated to conservative Hispanic outreach.

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.

During the January 2023 Speaker of the House election, Luna voted against Kevin McCarthy on the first 11 ballots, instead nominating Representative Jim Jordan and later Representative Byron Donalds.

In May 2023, Luna co-sponsored resolutions by Marjorie Taylor Greene to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew M. Graves.

Additionally in May 2023, Luna sponsored a resolution to have Adam Schiff removed from Congress and fined $16 million.