{"id":51101,"date":"2025-11-18T11:20:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/51101\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T11:20:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:20:07","slug":"why-this-florida-democrat-thinks-he-can-take-down-anna-paulina-luna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/51101\/","title":{"rendered":"Why this Florida Democrat thinks he can take down Anna Paulina Luna"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reggie Paros, a 34-year-old Democrat, thinks he has what it takes to beat Republican U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paros, a senior director at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, told the Tampa Bay Times that he\u2019s running for Florida\u2019s 13th Congressional District.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re at a moment now when we need people who believe in hard work, service and integrity to run for office,\u201d Paros said in an interview. \u201cThe congresswoman too often sides with her party in D.C. instead of her constituents here in Pinellas County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before working in green advocacy, Paros served as an aide to then-Republican U.S. Rep. David Jolly. Luna represents the district that Jolly held from 2014 until 2017. (Jolly is now a Democrat running for governor<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s 13th District, which includes most of Pinellas County, has gotten much redder since Jolly served the region. Republican leaders in Tallahasseedrew thousands more Republican voters into the district after the 2020 census. Trump won it by double digits<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n

Paros has never run for office before. But like many 2026 candidates, he\u2019s focused on affordability. He criticized Luna\u2019s vote for PresidentDonald Trump\u2019s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act<\/a>, which, among other things, cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicaid and extended tax cuts that disproportionately benefit wealthier Americans. Paros says Luna shouldn\u2019t have supported funding the tax cuts in part with cuts to social programs.<\/p>\n

Like Jolly, Paros used to be a Republican. He said he disagrees with some in the Democratic Party on a number of issues, including defunding the police and onwhat he says was the lax approach President Joe Biden took on border security.<\/p>\n

While some Democrats have run on social issues, Paros says he\u2019s running on pragmatic solutions to economic problems facing Pinellas Countyresidents. He said he supports a tax break for middle-class renters and a down payment support program for first-time homebuyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial issues are not on the minds of Pinellas County right now,\u201d Paros said. \u201cI\u2019ll be frank with you, I\u2019m pro-choice. I\u2019m an openly gay man, so I support marriage equality. But I think people want to talk about the economic issues that affect them every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paros will have his work cut out for him in a campaign against Luna. The two-term U.S. representative dispatched her well-funded 2024 opponent, Whitney Fox<\/a>, by double digits last November.<\/p>\n

The only other Democrat to have filed paperwork to run is Pinellas Park\u2019s Jeffrey Moore, who has reported no fundraising. The Democratic primary is set for Aug. 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reggie Paros, a 34-year-old Democrat, thinks he has what it takes to beat Republican U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8861,1813,17532,32379,28,30,29,596,32378],"class_list":["post-51101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-anna-paulina-luna","tag-david-jolly","tag-democrat","tag-environmental-defense-fund","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-reggie-paros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}