Republican Anna Paulina Luna (left) is defending her CD-13 seat against Democrat Whitney Fox. (Photos from the Luna and Fox campaigns).
Pinellas County GOP U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and her camp reacted with disbelief last week when a public opinion survey showed her trailing her Democratic opponent, Whitney Fox, 48%-44% in her bid for re-election in November.
It was a different story on Tuesday, with the Luna campaign touting a new survey conducted for the conservative-leaning Club for Growth PAC of the CD-13 contest which flips those numbers around, with Lula leading Fox now by five points, 48%-43%.
“Don’t believe the fake poll,” Luna said on Tuesday. “Here is legitimate polling showing I have a 5-point lead. By the time I am finished it will be even larger.”
The new poll was conducted by WPA Intelligence, which surveyed 400 likely voters in Florida’s 13th Congressional District from August 28-29. No other information was provided in the one-page document provided to the Phoenix.
Luna, a close political ally to Donald Trump and U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, won her seat over Democrat Eric Lynn by eight percentage points, 53%-45%, in 2022. Her victory came just months after Gov. Ron DeSantis’ staff personally redrew the district to make it more Republican-friendly.
Before redistricting, Democrat Charlie Crist had held the seat for six years. But 2022’s redistricting cut out significant portions of the district’s most liberal areas — St. Petersburg and Gulfport — putting those voters in Florida’s 14 Congressional District, which was already Democratic-leaning and has been held by Democrat Kathy Castor since 2006.
Florida Democrats have said that they believe the seat presents perhaps their best opportunity to flip from red to blue this November and cut into the Republican’s 20-8 domination over Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation.
The Cook Political Report lists the seat as “Likely Republican” — one of only four of Florida’s districts that the organization believes are even remotely competitive.
Ready for a change?
Democrats point to a survey released last week by St. Pete Polls which, surprisingly showed Fox up by nearly four full points in a congressional district in which there are nearly 55,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats.
“This poll confirms what we’ve been hearing from voters across Pinellas County — they are ready for a change. Our community is tired of the extreme partisanship and divisive rhetoric that has defined Anna Paulina Luna’s time in office,” Fox said last week after the survey was released. “People want real solutions, not her brand of shallow political theater.”
Luna responded to that survey last week by posting an image of different headlines of St. Pete Poll surveys on X.
“Being that it’s an election year, I’d like to have a moment of silence for previous candidates and their ‘winning’ polls,” Luna wrote, with the post showing headlines of write-ups of St. Pete Polls that showed Lynn and Republican congressional candidate Amanda Makki either tied or winning their races against Luna in 2022 and 2020, respectively.
“This week’s CD-13 poll had an R+9 sample and R+9 weighting, with Fox leading by 3.5%,” St. Pete Polls pollster Matt Florell told the Phoenix last week. “If there is a similar Democratic voter turnout collapse this year like there was in 2022, then I would expect Luna to win again, but by a much smaller margin this time.”
“There is really no way to predict voter turnout in an election, we can only make educated guesses based on recent past elections, and in 2022 we got it wrong, like a lot of polling organizations did in Florida,” he added. “It is important with polling to take all of the parameters of the poll into account when analyzing it, and the sample and weighting demographics are a very important part of that.”
Florell said that he conducted his CD-13 poll on Aug. 27, less than a week after the Democratic National Convention, which he says was a “very favorable time for Democratic candidates.”
Additional races
The Cook Political Report has listed three additional congressional races in Florida worth noting, although it expects all “likely” to remain held by the same political party after the Nov. 5 election. Those include:
Congressional District 27, a South Florida seat in which Republican Maria Elvira Salazar faces Democratic challenger Lucia Baez-Geller;
Congressional District 10 in Central Florida, in which Democratic incumbent Darren Soto is running against Republican Thomas Chalifoux;
Congressional District 23, where Democratic incumbent Jared Moskowitz represents parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties in his race against GOP challenger Joe Kaufman.