This 25-Year-Old Afro-Cuban Could Be the First Gen Z Member of Congress

Congress is likely to have its first Gen Z member in 2023 after progressive activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost won the Democratic primary for Florida’s 10th Congressional District on Tuesday night. The 25-year-old, who previously worked as an organizer with the ACLU and gun safety org March For Our Lives, defeated nine other Democratic candidates for the Orlando-based seat.

Members of Gen Z just became eligible to run for Congress in this election, since someone born in 1997 (the first year of the Gen Z generation) would be 25 and thus eligible to meet the age requirement to serve in the House.

Frost, who is Afro Cuban, focused his campaign on Medicare for All, ending gun violence, a Green New Deal, and affordable housing. “Our generation has been born into a lot of trauma and a lot of civil unrest around people being frustrated with things. And I think because of that, our generation naturally thinks about things in a bit of a different way,” Frost told NPR.

Florida’s 10th District was previously held by Rep. Val Demings (D-FL), who is leaving the seat to run as Florida’s Democratic nominee for Senate against GOP incumbent Marco Rubio in November.