Meet Maxwell Alejandro Frost, The First Member Of Gen Z Elected To Congress

There have been a few record-breaking, history-making results from yesterday's midterm elections, including Maura Healey becoming the first woman and first openly gay person to win the Massachusetts governorship. Among the "firsts" that this round of voting has created is the first ever member of Gen Z being elected to serve in the U.S. Congress (via NPR). While it looks like Florida has overwhelmingly chosen to keep Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in his position, the state didn't vote red across the board. Democrat Maxwell Alejandro Frost has won in Florida's 10th Congressional District, making him the first person of his young generation to be elected to Congress.

Because the seat he won is based in Orlando, which tends to lean consistently Democrat, his win was not a shock. He beat Republican Calvin Wimbish, who was running for the same seat, by 19 percentage points. What makes Frost's win historic is that he is twenty-five years old. 

After he was declared the projected winner, Frost tweeted, "We made history for Floridians, for Gen Z, and for everyone who believes we deserve a better future." Frost has been a political activist since he was a minor, touting change where it comes to issues like gun violence in America (via NPR). Before running for Congress, Frost worked as the national organizing director for March for Our Lives, which is a U.S. based group that advocates for stricter gun control policies across the nation. Once, when someone tried to deride Frost via a tweet claiming that it was impossible for Frost to have been a political leader and activist for ten years, as he would have had to have been fifteen when he began, Frost replied, "I started organizing at fifteen because I didn't want to get shot at school."

In fact, gun control laws are a hot button issue with Gen Z and young voters, as these are people who have grown up in a post-Columbine world, in which they were raised doing active shooter drills in school. Frost did indeed begin organizing at fifteen, directly after the Newtown shooting in 2012. Frost's campaign centered on common sense gun laws as well as universal healthcare.