Democrat Maxwell Frost is now the first member of Generation Z to head to Washington after winning his bid for Florida’s Congressional District 10 race over Republican challenger Calvin Wimbish Tuesday. 

Frost earned a national profile in the race as a result of his national efforts on gun legislation and other issues. That profile helped significantly during his fundraising efforts. He was able to raise $2,508,307 in his race as of October, of which he spent $2,317,341. Comparatively, Wimbish only raised $230,169, of which he spent $195,397. 

The two were featured in Spectrum News’ Beyond the Soundbite podcast, where they each shared with voters why they should win on election day. 

“There’s a lot that I want to work on, whether it’s working in a bipartisan way to ending gun violence, appropriating money to communities, ensuring that we are doing everything we can to bring down rising costs, including the cost of rent,” Frost told Spectrum News during a podcast last month. 

Wimbish came out swinging as well. “I want people to recognize that this is really about good versus evil, right versus wrong. We are all feeling the pain with no gain, as to where we are today,” Wimbish told Spectrum News during the podcast. 

The two also participated in a debate hosted by Spectrum News and the Orlando Sentinel. 

The debate lasted for 30 minutes, with each candidate getting one minute to respond to a direct question and 30 seconds for a rebuttal. Each candidate also got an additional minute for their closing arguments. 

When asked about arming teachers in schools, Wimbish responded by saying, "There needs to be support to the security officers that are on campus. Teachers who are qualified and have been certified should be able to help those police officers. We've seen the violence increase without that support."

Frost's response to the same question was, "I am not for arming teachers in schools ,and teachers unions and teachers themselves don't want that responsibility. Our teachers are already underpaid. They don't have the resources they need to teach their classes. Now we want to talk about arming them and putting the security of students in their hands like that? I think it's far too much."

The first issue debated is fresh on the minds of many in Central Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian. The candidates spoke about the role of the federal government in addressing Florida's property insurance crisis and skyrocketing premiums.

"When we see what happened in the Florida state Legislature over the past few months, and especially the special session that was called for insurance, they did nothing on it because of Gov. Ron DeSantis and his work to help scapegoat vulnerable communities due to his failures. And so, when the state doesn’t step in, the federal government does need to," Frost said.

Wimbish retorted that, "Ron DeSantis did all he could prior to and throughout the Hurricane Ian to make sure that the funding that needed to go to the most devastated areas like Fort Myers, where I used to be down there as a school teacher, that devastation was taken down — what we have to do is make sure that when we allocate funds from the federal government we just cannot add more side reasons for using money that is not insured for the people."

Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings won the race for District 10 in 2020 with 63.6% of the vote. She first took office in 2016, beating Republican Thuy Lowe with 35.1% of the vote. She’s currently running for the Senate against Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

It should be noted that District 10 was changed dramatically after the 2020 census and redistricting process. 

Before the district was changed, It consisted mostly of West Orlando, going North into Apopka and south into Lake Buena Vista territory. It also included the Dr. Phillips and Windermere neighborhoods. Now, the map includes parts of West Orlando to Gotha, East Orlando, but most of South Orlando was cut off.