Community organizer Maxwell Frost won his Florida race for Congress on Tuesday, NBC News projected, making him the first member of Generation Z to reach the House of Representatives.
Frost, 25, beat Republican Calvin Wimbish, a retired 72-year-old Army Green Beret, to take the Orlando-based 10th Congressional District seat now held by Democrat Val Demings.
Frost will stand out among his soon-to-be peers in the halls of Congress where the average age of House members is 58. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 82, while GOP leader Kevin McCarthy will be 58 three weeks after the 118th Congress gavels into session. (Gen Z generally refers to those born in the late 1990s to the early 2010s.)
Members of the House must be at least 25. The minimum age to serve in the U.S. Senate is 30 and a president must be at least 35.
The young Democrat worked as the national organizing director for March for Our Lives, an anti-gun violence group that emerged from the Parkland massacre, and has made gun violence a focal point of his campaign. Frost picked up endorsements from prevention groups like Brady: United Against Gun Violence and Giffords, as well as gun control activist Fred Guttenberg, one of the most high-profile parent activists to emerge from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre on Feb. 14, 2018, when his 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg was gunned down.
“History was made tonight,” Frost said in a statement. “We made history for Floridians, for Gen Z, and for everyone who believes we deserve a better future. I am beyond thankful for the opportunity to represent my home in the United States Congress.”
Another Gen Z congressional candidate, 25-year-old Republican Karoline Leavitt, is in a competitive race for Congress in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.
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