The Whitney Fox Endorsement

The woman who can beat extremist Anna Paulina Luna.

In 2022, Republicans had an amazing year in Florida. Ron DeSantis cruised to re-election, leading to speculation of a Presidential run. Across the state, Republicans romped to re-election. There was just one exception: Florida’s 13th congressional district. Anna Paulina Luna, a first-time candidate with extreme views on abortion (she proudly calls herself a “pro-life extremist” and supports Florida’s extreme six-week ban) and democracy (she claims that Trump won the 2020 election) barely dragged herself across the finish line in what should have been a safe Republican district. While the average Florida Republican ran 12 points ahead of Trump’s margin in 2020, Luna ran only 1 point ahead¹. Even Matt Gaetz managed to run 3 points ahead of Trump.

Since her poor electoral performance in the midterms, Luna has continued governing from the most extreme wing of MAGA. Luna co-sponsored resolutions to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, Christopher Wray and Merrick Garland. She led a censure effort against Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff over his comments about Trump's ties to Russia. She recently introduced a resolution to fine Attorney General Merrick Garland $10,000 daily over unreleased audio tapes from an interview with President Biden.

Enter Whitney Fox, Luna’s Democratic challenger who we endorsed last week and added to our Win the Middle slate, prompting a headline from NOTUS’ Katherine Swartz: Centrist Democrats Are Throwing Their Support Behind Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s Challenger.

The GOP incumbent became one of our targeted Luna-tics because she is out of step with her district, which is not a bright red seat. Fox recognized that as well, deciding to challenge this fellow young mom who took advantage of the anger-tainment ecosystem to become famous while ignoring her mostly moderate constituents on both sides of the aisle.

In fact, Luna reminds us a great deal of another MAGA congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, whose extreme views and attention-grabbing in the media resulted in Boebert almost losing her seat last cycle to Welcome-endorsed Adam Frisch. To make matters worse, Luna has been stumping with unpopular Republican nominee for Vice President JD Vance.

This is an incumbent who is not only extreme, but data shows she is vulnerable. Welcome prioritizes and invests in districts just like the one Fox is running in: places where the voters don’t fancy extremists. Florida’s 13th congressional district has a demonstrated track record of cross-partisan moderates as the seat of former moderate Reps. David Jolly and Charlie Crist. Fox is the type of dynamic challenger who brings out that contrast and welcomes center-right voters into the Democratic coalition.

Like Adam Frisch, Whitney Fox offers a completely different style of politics. A mom of young children, Whitney was raised in the district by a single mother in a bipartisan family. She went on to work in the business sector in addition to working in public service at the local county’s public transportation department, helping to improve Pinellas County's system and create jobs.

Why Whitney Fox Can Win

Fox isn’t a typical partisan politician. A bipartisan problem-solver who has worked with both Democrats and Republicans to address the needs of Pinellas County, Fox wants to welcome Republicans distrustful of MAGA leaders like Luna into the Democratic Party. Republicans in FL-13 are concerned about Luna’s extremism (more on that later) and prefer more moderate and respectable representation in Congress. 

Fox raised an impressive $845k leading up to her competitive primary, while Luna has leveraged her incumbency and celebrity to raise $2.3 million - but after spending $1.4 million, has just $917k on hand. Based on data from the Congressional Competition Index, in similar seats (16 undercompeted R held seats that have a baseline score of 4), Dems have raised an average of $408k and Rs have raised an average of $2.7m with an average of $1.6m on hand. Fox is outperforming average fundraising in these seats and Luna is underperforming.

A district poll conducted by Fox’s team in May proved Fox’s viability further: after messaging and bios, Fox leads Luna among voters surveyed 49-47%, and narrows the number of undecided voters to 39%.

An ad put out by Fox’s campaign notes, “Our way of life is under attack by extremist politicians attacking our reproductive freedoms, our democracy and doing nothing to lower the costs we’re all struggling with.”

The District

This St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay-based district on the west coast of Florida includes popular attractions like the Salvador Dalí Museum, Tropicana Field (home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team), and numerous beaches along the Gulf Coast. Prior to being aggressively redistricted to benefit Republicans, this district was swingy, most recently being represented by moderate Democrat (and former Republican) Charlie Crist. Prior to Crist, this district was also represented by David Jolly, an anti-Trump Republican who left the party in 2018.

Whitney Fox could bring back the reasonable and sane leadership this district is accustomed to. Notably, independent voters make up a third of voters in this district. 

FL-13 went for Trump by 6.8 points (52.9% Trump, 46.1% Biden) in 2020 after he won by 7.8 points (51.5% to 43.7%) in 2016. 

In November, both cannabis and abortion are on the ballot in Florida, meaning voters will be turning out to vote for more than just their elected representation. That could also mean higher voter turnout in an already-high presidential election year.

The Republican Incumbent

Luna has said she would have voted to oppose the PACT Act, and has taken extreme stances on gun safety (she wore an AR-15 pin in Congress shortly after a mass shooting) and abortion (saying that women concerned with Florida’s restrictive abortion ban should “move elsewhere” and coming out against rape exceptions). 

While she claims to be the first Mexican American woman elected to Congress from Florida, former colleagues told The Washington Post she has identified as Middle Eastern, Jewish and Eastern European in the past.

In 2021, she accused her political rivals of trying to assassinate her. She even wrote a children’s book claiming the 2020 election was stolen. 

Join Us

Florida’s 13th shouldn’t be this competitive, but Luna’s extremism is driving many independents and moderate Republicans to consider their options. Whitney Fox will welcome these voters into the pro-democracy, Team Normal coalition. Support Whitney and help her flip Florida’s 13th district blue in November via our Win the Middle slate. Fox’s late August primary means she needs all the support she can get, and fast. Join us to ensure Fox brings back commonsense to FL-13. To see how we think about endorsements, read our piece introducing the Win the Middle slate here. 

1. Excluding the uncontested races.