Yeya’s grandson is going to Congress in a historic win for Florida and weary Democrats | Opinion
Surprise, surprise.
As Miami-Dade and Florida dug in their political heels, all-in for Gov. DeSantis’ Republican Party, the future emerged — a new Democratic star rose in the darkness of partisanship to score a historic win in an Orlando congressional race.
Nation, say hello to Maxwell Alejandro Frost, at all of 25, the first member of Gen Z born in the 1990s to win an election and become a member of Congress.
This is who he is: Remarkably young, but savvy. AfroCuban. The proud grandson of a devoted Hialeah abuela nicknamed Yeya, who moved to Central Florida to raise him. A committed grassroots organizer, inspired to lead after the Parkland school shooting, and named by Time magazine a “Next Generation Leader.”
His win over an African-American retired Republican Green Beret colonel, Calvin Wimbish, by 19 percentage points was so impressive that President Biden not only called him election night but gave him a spirited shout-out during his Wednesday post-midterms news conference.
During the call, Biden joked that Frost was even younger than he was when he was elected to the U.S. Senate at age 29.
“I have no doubt he’s off to an incredible start in what, I’m sure, will be a long, distinguished career,” Biden said.
Then, the president joked: “And when he’s president and they say, ‘Joe Biden is out in the outer office,’ I don’t want him to say, ‘Joe who?’ “
Thank you @POTUS for recognizing the importance of the youth vote and shouting me out! Looking forward to working together to bring young people to the policy making table.
pic.twitter.com/yVljrDLaZX— Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) November 9, 2022
Frost wins Demings’ seat
His promising rise takes some of the sting over the political blows the state’s weary Democrats took Tuesday.
Frost won the seat congresswoman Val Demings left to challenge Miami GOP icon Marco Rubio, who became the first Republican U.S. senator in Florida history to score a third term in office.
Demings, who out-fundraised Rubio and made him sweat re-election, may have lost to Florida’s red wave, but she leaves her seat in the hands of bipartisan hope personified in a young man from Central Florida whose father is Haitian, mother Cuban and who crosses cultures, races and Florida geography.
“The perspective I bring as a young person, as a young Black person, as a young Black Latino person from the South, is important,” Frost told The New York Times. (I reached out to his spokesman seeking comment, but didn’t get a response).
AfroCuban roots
His cubanito roots are meaningful to Frost, his social-media posts reveal.
Former Democratic congressman Joe Garcia held a fundraiser for him in South Florida, which means Frost will likely be a voice seeking a diplomatic engagement approach to Cuba policy.
“I’m an Afro-Cuban who stands with any movements of folks fighting for justice,” Frost tweeted on July 11, 2021 in support of Cuba’s historic demonstrations. “But let’s tell the truth here . . . Republicans using the movement in Cuba to push a harsher embargo is despicable. This is part of the reason why the conditions are bad. We are harming the country.”
The second part of his tweet is a simplistic, predictable left-of-center reaction on a day when pure condemnation of the regime was called for, not apologies. Cuba’s troubles have one major source: the crushing repression of a 63-year-dictatorship.
But his tweet didn’t cause much of a ruckus, pro or con. Nor did many notice when he campaigned in Miami last week.
Outside Democratic circles, in Trump-DeSantis-centric Miami, few paid any attention to the young man on stage in a blue suit at a Democratic rally featuring Broadway star and Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda.
But while the two Latinas who commanded the attention — congressional candidate Annette Taddeo and lieutenant governor aspirant Karla Hernández-Mats lost their elections — Frost has ended up being the revelation.
Turns out the most groundbreaking election night story wasn’t to be found in Miami-Dade, once a bastion of Democratic voters, confirming its MAGA-red radicalization, or in Florida losing its powerful purple battleground-state designation.
We saw all that coming long before Tuesday’s midterm election.
The fresh national story — the one that speaks to everything that is possible in America — played out in Orlando’s congressional District 10.
Miami used to be that kind of place, one that made inspirational election history.
We birthed the career of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, first Latina elected to the Florida House, then first Hispanic woman and first Cuban American elected to Congress. There were a lot of opportunities to make history electing, for example, an openly lesbian mother of two, business woman and wife.
But, now a bastion of Republican gerrymandered districts, Miami-Dade mostly spins political sameness. A Republican takeover had already taken place in previous elections. This one solidified the trend.
Is Orlando turning into the more interesting multicultural Florida city?
Thanks to a strong coalition of minority voters — Puerto Rican, liberal Cuban American (some fleeing Miami), plus Muslim and gay communities — the home of Mickey Mouse may be challenging Miami’s bragging rights to “City of the Future.”
Perhaps I’m reading too much into one win, but Frost now is a star, sought out by every major news outlet, every political show in the country.
I only wished grandmother Zenaida Argibay, who died at 97 in October, had lived at least another month to see her nieto be called congressman-elect.
Abuela Yeya, exile of the Freedom Flights, would be so proud.
