Today, Explained - Gen Z in the House

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Florida’s Maxwell Frost, 25, is the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress. He tells us what he plans to get done. This episode was produced by Siona Peterous, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The day 83-year-old Steny Hoyer of Maryland was re-elected to Congress this month, he tweeted a link to his op-ed about Democrats putting hashtag people over politics. 84-year-old Maxine Waters of California waited three days to tweet, then sent a message on Veterans Day. 85-year-old Bill Pascrell of New Jersey thanked the people of the greatest state in America, hashtag Jersey strong. And 25-year-old Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida tweeted, in all caps, I'm going to see at the 1975 on Thursday to celebrate, lots of exclamation points.

It'll be a while before we know exactly what role young voters played in the 2022 midterms, but one of them won an election. Coming up on Today Explained, an interview with Florida's Gen Z congressman. The all new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600.

Visit connectsontario.ca. Today, today, explain. My name is Maxwell Alejandro Frost. I'm the Democratic nominee for Congress in Florida's 10th Congressional District. And congratulations to you. And what year were you born? 1997. 1997. All right. So you're the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress.

How do you feel? I feel great. You know, So you're the first member of Generation Z the office ready and just ensuring that we're all good for January so we can really serve the people immediately. You're in Washington, D.C. this week doing orientation? Yes. Yep. What's one thing about orientation that you think you'll never forget? One experience. Hmm. I think the connections I'm making and just being able to make some really great friendships, you know, we have such a diverse, at least on the Democratic side, it's such a diverse and young class of people. People like Greg Kassar in Austin, Texas, or Delia Ramirez, Jasmine Crockett, Summer Lee. I mean, I could go on forever, really. And so it's just really exciting to build these strong relationships.

And we're talking about we're already kind of scheming, right? Like, how are we going to work together to provide for people back at home, but also shift the narrative? After the midterms, I was talking to a man who spent many years on Capitol Hill many years ago, and he's in academia now. And I asked him what he thought you might encounter. And he said, well, no one is going to believe that he's in Congress, referring to your age, of course. Have you experienced any of that? Anyone saying like, son, what are you doing here? Yeah, well, not from members, but I've counted five times now that I've been stopped and told like, oh, this is the members line or this and that, but it's okay. I don't really hold it against people too much. I mean, it is, the fact of the matter is it is abnormal for a 25-year-old to be in the halls of Congress as a member. And so I'm one of many folks hopefully and young folks that will help change that stigma. But it was actually funny. I think it was yesterday or the day before. I'm blurring the days.

But I was walking into a building and was walking through the member line, which we're allowed to do with our ID. And the guy was like, oh, hey, that's for members. You got to come through here. And I was like, oh, I'm a member elected. I showed him my ID. And he's like, wait, let me see it. And then he looked at it. And then him and like the other guard looked at it and they started like cheering. And they're like, oh, my God, you're so young. And he's black. Only in America. Like, you know, they were like jumping up and down and clapping. And it was actually really cool. It was really sweet. You know, it was funny. What did you feel like when you heard that?

I started jumping with them. I was like, yeah, we're here. We made it. You know, and, you know, I think that feeling that they had, those guards, is really the feeling that hopefully a lot of people across the country have had. But again, not just my election, but the election of just really great young people, especially young people of color coming into freshman class. The average age in the House of Representatives is 59-ish. So you're going to be very young compared to many of your colleagues. And I wonder, what do you think the challenges will be having colleagues who are, on the whole, just a lot older than you?

The great thing is a lot of my colleagues are really just excited to have me there. Something that Speaker Pelosi told me just a few days after I won my primary is that it's going to be really a breath of fresh air to have young people in the caucus. And so I'm really excited about it. You know, I think there's often times where people will maybe not take me as seriously or look down on me. But that's something I'm used to, right? I mean, I've been working full time in politics since straight out of high school. I'm 18 years old. And I've always been the youngest person in the room. I've managed people twice my age. I mean, so I've always been really navigating this dynamic. And even though it's at a whole new level now in the United States Congress, you know, I'm ready for it.

How did you get your start at 18? So actually, my start was actually at 15. 15. 18 is when I, 18 is really when it kind of became my career, right? When I started my first full-time job as an organizer. But how I really got involved was 10 years ago was the Sandy Hook shooting. Breaking news, I'm a band nerd. I went to a high school and middle school that was an arts

high school, middle school, and I played jazz drums. Uh, so before every jazz band concert, my best friends and I would go to this, uh, uh, restaurant across the street. We'd load up on a ton of junk food. And I remember we're there eating and there was a kind of silence that fell across the entire restaurant. We looked around, looked at each other and finally looked up and saw that somebody walked into an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and murdered 20 children and three teachers. And for me, it had an insane impact on my life. I couldn't think straight. And I ended up going to the memorial in Washington, D.C. here. And it was there that I met a guy named Matthew Soto. Matthew's sister, Vicky,

was one of the teachers at Sandy Hook that lost her life. And seeing Matthew crying and talking about how much he missed his sister, seeing a, at the time he was 16, seeing a 16-year-old with the demeanor of a 60-year-old just completely changed my life forever. And it was, you know, I went straight to my hotel room and I dedicated the rest of my life to fighting for a world where no one would have to feel the pain that I saw in Matthew's eyes. And for me, that really is really what changed everything for me. Organizing and being a politician, as you well know at this point, are two very different things. Why did you decide that you wanted to go into politics, which in a lot of ways I would guess could be much harder? Yeah, well, you know, for me, and also earlier

I said it was three teachers, six teachers that were killed at Sandy Hook. You know, for me, I actually think organizing and legislating and being a member of Congress are actually a lot more similar than we think it is, right? I mean, you know, the crux of what we do up here is work to pass legislation to do it. You have to get buy-in from your colleagues, and you have to sometimes work with people across the aisle as well. Organizing is all about bringing people together around a common shared value for a specific outcome and asking them to take action. It could be knocking doors. It could be protesting. In this case, it's casting a ballot, casting a vote, and asking them to also help you inspire other people to be involved as well.

So I think that's part of the reason we could use more organizers in Congress. Maybe we'd get some more things done. And also, outside of just legislating, which is obviously one of our main functions, but another, you know, big function of a member of Congress is to be a community leader, to build power in the community and to help shift the narrative and really use the bully pulpit to change the way people think about these issues. I think about someone like Representative Cori Bush that when they took out the evictions moratorium, she knew what it was like to sleep on the streets. And she slept on the Capitol steps. And because of her advocacy, it was extended and people stayed in their homes, right? And so there's ways to also be creative about things.

You will represent the 10th Congressional District of Florida. What do you think your constituents elected you to do? How'd you win? If you go to our platform, the platform is really a love letter to our community, right? We spent time in the community, found out what the main issues were, and provided bold transformational solutions to get the world that we want to live in. And look, everyone understands we're not going to get those solutions passed next year or tomorrow, right? I think voters and people understand that, that we live in a system that works slowly at times, but we can't know what step to take if we don't know where our destination is, right? And that's why I think it's important

that leaders, politicians are unafraid of talking about what it means to live in a country where everybody has healthcare, what it means to live in a country where we are taking significant action to combat the climate crisis, to end gun violence, to ensure people have a thrivable wage, housing is a human right. These things are really important to talk about because for me, it's not about, when you talk about it that way, it's not left versus right. It's not Republicans versus Democrats. It's the people versus the problem. And the fact of the matter is we had a lot of problems going on right now.

People are having trouble living. We live in a country where just so many people have so little and then there's a smaller group of people who have so much. And that creates this system that we're in now where people, especially our most vulnerable communities, don't have the resources they need to tap into the opportunity our country has. Yes, our country has immense opportunity, but the fact of the matter is you need resources to tap into a lot of that opportunity. The results of the 2022 midterms and the results of the past couple of years suggest that Florida is becoming a red state. It used to be a swing state when you were young. It was one of the swingiest states. What do you think the Democratic Party is doing wrong? How is it losing Florida? Sometimes, especially in Florida, these Democratic campaigns end up being campaigns of just rebuttaling Republicans, right? Republicans

call you this name, you spend a million dollars on a commercial that says I'm not that. Republicans say you believe this, you spend a million dollars on a commercial that says I'm not that. Republicans say you believe this, you spend a million dollars on a commercial saying you didn't do that. And so we spend so much time talking about what we're not and don't spend as much time talking about what we are and what we believe in. And what I found in my organizing is people are more apt and excited to vote for you if they have something to believe in. We had a lot of candidates focusing on talking about what they're not and what they are. And we did have this year where Republicans really had a good year. And it was very, it was bittersweet for me, to be honest, election night, because I obviously had my win and my historic win,

but we lost a lot of great people in our state legislature. And so there's just a lot of work to do in Florida, but we cannot give up. When you were campaigning, you talked a lot about love, which was interesting. It's not a word you hear all the time on political campaigns. And you talked about thinking beyond partisanship. Now, research has shown that a lot of millennials refuse to run for office because of the perceived toxicity of Congress. The partisanship, the fights, the refusing to work across the aisle. You seem like a very optimistic man. How are you going to deal with gridlock and partisanship, the fights, the refusing to work across the aisle. You seem like a very optimistic

man. How are you going to deal with gridlock and partisanship and just straight negativity? Yeah. I mean, and Congress is toxic, right? Oh, you agree. Okay. Yeah. I mean, no, we know this, right? I mean, you know, and it's something I've had to square. I'm going into a system that has caused a lot of harm historically. But I also think to give up on government as a path towards the world we want is to almost give up on our greatest tool that we have as far as being able to make the change. And that comes as an organizer. I think we have to use every tool in our toolbox. We got to vote. We got to protest. We got to be involved in our arts and culture because that changes the way that our society thinks about

these issues. And we also got to engage in mutual aid so and culture because that changes the way that our society thinks about these issues. And we also got to engage in mutual aid so we can take care of each other despite the problems that we're in. You know, the interesting thing about Congress that I was just talking with a colleague about this a few, like on Monday night, we were at a dinner and I noticed that part of, you know, intense divide and partisanship is even built into the operation of Congress, right? things that we've done besides the classes that we're sitting in, which we're not really talking to each other. We're trying to pay attention to what's being said. All these sort of things are interesting because I think it

really even subconsciously continues to sow in the divide that we have right now, which is unfortunate. And obviously, look, I'm really new here. And I think, you know, there's obviously traditions and everything like that. But even just being a new member and walking through orientation, yeah, I can tell, you know, some of the reasons why there's so much divide. I mean, things are just divided even in the operation of the way Congress works. You know, the other thing I'll say is, look, part of the reason why these times are becoming even more divided is there's a specific reason. I mean, we have a far right MAGA movement, far right wing movement that is saying if you have a problem, they are scapegoating every vulnerable community for every problem there is. And that is real division. You know, it's hard to come to the table with someone who doesn't respect your humanity. You know, imagine being a queer legislator and coming into this body or being a trans legislator and coming to this body. I'm going to sit across from someone and talk about issues

who doesn't value your existence as a human. It's very difficult. And that's something that we have to square and figure out. I think bipartisanship is incredibly important. Compromise is part of governing. That's what happens when you have a body of 435 people and you stuff them in a chamber and you tell them to work together. They got to kind of work together. But we also have to be very frank about the dangers looming in government right now and this threat against our democracy, which is really this far-right movement that doesn't want to work with other people, that wants to blame everybody else for all the problems that are going on,

and wants to look working-class people in the face and tell them that the source of their problem isn't the people who are making the most money or the people who have traditionally had the most, but it's their fellow neighbor who might look different than them. And for that, that's why culture and art is so important in the political work. We have to really pierce that and get straight to the humanity of people and just talk about the fact that we're all part of this grand mosaic of humanity and you can eat and I can eat, right? You can succeed and I can succeed. In fact, our successes are really tied together. And that message, I've seen it strike a chord with Republicans, with Democrats, with progressives, with moderates, with all different

types of people in my district. And that's the message that I think is a winning one. Congressman-elect Maxwell Frost, thank you so much for being here. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. Stop pacing while the boom is in other people's faces as I'm here for you. I know your lungs need a thrill. Support for today explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions

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What counts as a youth voter? Generally, we're talking about voters 18 to 29. And what do we know about what youth voters meant to and in and for the 2022 midterms? So there's some early disagreement over whether these young voters swung elections or whether they played a more modest role. One thing we know for sure is that they strongly favored Democratic candidates and that, you know, this is the second highest turnout that this age group has had in at least 30 years, just second to 2018, when about 31 percent of them showed up. In this case, about 27 percent of them showed up. And there is some evidence to suggest that in really key

races across the country, that strong preference that they have for Democrats might have tipped some candidates over the edge in key races and given Democrats hard-won victories. These estimates are all based on exit polls, some of which speak to voters as they're coming out from the polls, some of which speak to voters as they're coming out from the polls and some of which don't. It's not actually solid data on how people voted. The census will release more solid data on voting behavior, but it often takes weeks or months to get that. And the numbers that we have now will be revised when we get that more solid data. There is strong evidence in places like Pennsylvania, young voters strongly preferred John Fetterman.

It looks like they preferred him 70% to his opponents 28%. In that case, Fetterman won the race by about 4%. Huge breaking news. Democrat John Fetterman has won the Senate race in Pennsylvania. Folks, this is amazing news for the Democratic Party. This was also a Democratic pickup. Previously, Republicans held the seat, but now it's flipped to the Democrats and John Fetterman. In the Wisconsin governor's race, it was the same deal. 70 percent preferred Tony Evers, the incumbent Democrat, over his Republican opponent. He won by about 3%. Y'all, compared to 2018, the Wisconsin youth vote is up 360%. It's happening.

It also appears that young voters strongly preferred the Democrats in Arizona, who are running for senator and governor. And ultimately, both of those candidates we now know, Mark Kelly and Katie Hobbs, won. Hey, Carrie Lake. My name's Katie. Just want to let you know I'm going to go drop off my ballot and I'm not voting for you because you're kind of a douchebag. But, yep, no conspiracy, no fraud, just not voting for you. So there is evidence to suggest that they strongly prefer the Democrats in these key races. And where they did prefer those Democrats, they narrowly won their elections. Do young people traditionally strongly prefer Democrats? Like, was 2022 different? So this is a somewhat new trend, but there is evidence that these voters are more solidly

liberal than previous generations were at their age. So if you go back and you look at elections in the late 90s and early 2000s, for example, it was a much more even split with young voters. It was pretty evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. That divide in young voters preferring Democrats really opened up in 2004 and 2008. And that divide has been growing since. But what we've seen in the last 20 years is that more young voters now who are strongly preferring Democrats. Do we know why? I think it's because some of the issues that these young voters are ranking as their top

choice issues and the issues that motivate them and get them to the polls are climate change and issues like gun reform. And, you know, those are two issues where there is a really stark divide in terms of what each party is offering or saying about those issues. By what margin do people under 30 prefer Democrats? Yeah, so the estimates are that 63 percent of young voters preferred Democrats. 63 percent of young voters preferred Democrats. 63% of young voters preferred Democrats. It's not an overwhelming number. It's not an overwhelming number, but when you start to break it down, those divides get even more stark. And it is basically

across every category of young voters. So white young voters, Black young voters, Latino young voters, Asian young voters, men, women, they all favor Democratic candidates. But when you break it down even further, you know, an estimated 87% of Black young voters voted for Democrats, 67% of Latino youth favored Democrats. It's even smaller for white voters. They were about 57% for Democrats. But, you know, this generation, both of these generations, millennials and Gen Z, are larger and they're much more diverse. So if there are more of them voting, it can be a real boon for Democrats. We would have had a red wave, actually, if not for younger people. Between 40 and 49-year-olds, Republicans won by seven points.

50 to 64-year-olds, they won by nine points. And they won by 12 points among people over the age of 65. That's a red wave, but it's a red wave among baby boomers. Maren, if it's the case that more young voters turned out in 2018, why is everyone making such a big deal about turnout this year? I think the major reason that you're seeing all of this excitement is because Democrats do recognize that this is a huge potential source of electoral power for them, and that if young voters turn out, they can become an incredibly important voting bloc with the power to transform our politics. So some of the excitement is about the fact that there is huge power when this group

decides to vote, and I think there's excitement about getting more of them to vote in future elections. And so what is the Republican Party response to this? I think you're going to see a lot of soul searching in the months ahead about how to win these voters. It should have been one of the biggest red waves we've ever had because, you know, President Biden's approval rating was so low, one of the lowest historically. More than 70 percent of people thought the country was going in the wrong direction, and yet we still didn't perform. Frankly, I think it's going to be very hard. You know, the issues that these young voters rank as their priorities, climate change and gun control, are ones where the Republican Party is not offering them much.

And another thing that a lot of young voters cited was abortion. So you have one party who is actively trying to restrict reproductive rights, and you have another that's vowing to try to protect them. There's not a lot that Republicans are currently offering to this age cohort, so I don't quite know where they go from here. What do you think the election of Maxwell Frost, the first Generation Z member into the Congress, tells us? Other than we're all getting older? Like, what is the significance here? This is a generation that is not waiting for permission. And when you think about the way that young people have mobilized and organized around the issues that they really care about,

again, those issues like climate change and gun control, you've seen them be able to make a difference in politics already, and you've seen that they're not waiting for their turn. So I think, if anything, Maxwell Frost's election is evidence that we're going to see more of these young people running and not waiting, not sort of coming up the old-fashioned way necessarily. I mean, I think there will be several of them doing that too, but I think we should expect to see more of them running in future elections.

Today's show was produced by Siona Petros, who is indeed a youth, and it was edited by Matthew Collette. It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard. It was engineered by Afim Shapiro, Gen X. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.