Ashley Hermann at WMNF in Tampa, Florida on Oct. 16, 2026. / Photo by Ray Roa
There are just 18 days until the 2026 general election wraps, and Leela Gray is looking to unseat incumbent Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, who was first elected to represent the Tampa Bay area’s 13th Congressional district in 2022.
The Democrat was on WMNF public affairs program The Skinny today, to talk about the war in Iran, plus stock trading and participation in prediction markets by elected officials. On the topic of term limits, she suggested that elected officials in Washington D.C. should spend no more than 6-12 years.
Gray, a former Retired Brigadier General in the army, moved carefully around a question about moving to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying instead that every leader “should be held accountable.”
Also on a packed program today was Tampa-based journalist Natasha Del Toro, a Columbia Journalism School grad who’s worked with Frontline, the New York Times, the Weekly Planet (now Creative Loafing Tampa Bay), and more recently Al Jazeera English and More Perfect Union where she brings hard-hitting investigations to folks who might rather watch their news than read it.
Del Toro’s latest, “Dying In Detention,” is Al Jazeera English’s look at the roughly 55 people who have died in ICE custody since President Trump returned to office, a figure she said was the highest it’s been in two decades. The documentary follows the death of 39-year-old Ismael Ayala-Uribe who died in September 2025, one month after entering California’s Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
Dropping by the WMNF Tampa studio to close the program was Ashley Herrmann, a Democrat running to unseat Republican incumbent Florida State Rep. Danny “Daniel” Alvarez, who voters first sent to Tallahassee in 2022.
“I didn’t plan on being a politician,” she said about how climate change helped push her to campaign.
Herrmann also discussed development in rural areas, saying his votes on bills have allowed developers to build without paying their fair share to offset the environmental and infrastructure consequences.
Early voting runs Oct. 19-Nov. 1. The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot is no later than 5 p.m. on the 12th day before the election—Oct. 22. The voter registration deadline for November’s general election has passed.
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