‘I’ll be crashing on someone’s couch till I get paid’: life as the first Gen Z congressman

Maxwell Alejandro Frost at a rally outside the US Capitol calling on the Senate to ban assault weapons. Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

When we last visited 25-year-old Maxwell Alejandro Frost in September he was campaigning to become the first Gen Z member of the US Congress, and driving Uber shifts to make ends meet in the meantime. In early November he defeated his Republican rival, Calvin Wimbish, by a considerable margin, winning 59% of the vote in Florida’s 10th congressional district, which includes Orlando and many of its surrounding theme parks.

Frost’s life has only become messier since. Chiefly, he has yet to sort out his living accommodation in Washington DC, and must decide whether to keep paying rent for the Orlando home he shares with two others, as well as working out how to foot these bills until his $174,000 (£142,000) federal salary kicks in. He says: “I’ll probably crash on someone’s couch in DC for the first month at least.”