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The 2022 midterm elections held many historical moments, and Florida’s Maxwell Frost was one of them after being the first Afro-Cuban and member of Generation Z to be elected to Congress.
As early results from the midterm elections began to come in on Tuesday (Nov. 8), the 10th Congressional District in Florida made a bold historical choice as Maxwell Alejandro Frost was the winner of their election. “WE WON!!!! History was made tonight. We made history for Floridians, for Gen Z, and for everyone who believes we deserve a better future,” the 25-year-old wrote on Twitter soon after.
Frost became the first member of Generation Z to attain a seat in Congress. His win over Republican challenger, the conservative and former Green Beret Calvin Wimbish, held significant meaning for the progressive activist, who served as a national director for the student-led organization March For Our Lives as a gun control legislation advocate and survivor of gun violence. Frost also becomes the first of Afro-Cuban ethnicity to take a seat in Congress, adding to growing diversity in that body of government.
Frost has been highly vocal about his own struggles as a candidate. “As a young person who just doesn’t have a lot of money, I’ve been living literally paycheck to paycheck this entire year and at times didn’t have money to feed myself,” he said in an interview with HuffPost. He had actually begun to work as an Uber driver after running out of money to pay his bills in the first three months of his campaign.
The seat in the 10th Congressional District had been vacated by Val Demings, who lost her election as the Democratic nominee for Senator against the Republican incumbent, Marco Rubio. Frost will be joining what is estimated to be the oldest membership in Congress, where the average age of members is 58. He’s also primed to be a part of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which counts Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Cori Bush among its members.
