Things were heating up in Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon when U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost came to campus (D-FL) to foster support for the Harris-Walz presidential campaign. 

Frost visited Downtown Pittsburgh for a press conference at the Allegheny County Democratic Committee office building, ending his Pittsburgh tour on Pitt’s campus with a tabling event in Towers lobby hosted by College Democrats at Pitt. 

At the “New Way Forward” press conference, Valerie Thomas-Njie, President of the Pitt Alumni Association, opened the event speaking on the dichotomy between the presidential campaigns of Trump and Harris.

“Put simply, Pennsylvanians cannot afford another Trump presidency,” Thomas-Nije said. “Kamala Harris has been, her entire career, standing up for everyday people against predators, scammers and powerful interests. She has a vision of a new way forward.”

Samantha Podnar, a junior politics and philosophy student and co-president of Democrats at Pitt, helped introduce Frost and advocated for students “voting for our own futures.” 

“It has never been easier to cast your ballot and we cannot afford to let others decide our future by sitting on the sidelines.” Podnar said.  “You get to choose the world you want to live in … and we do that by voting.”

In 2022, Frost made history as the youngest member of Congress when he was elected to represent Florida’s 10th Congressional District. Kasey Brown, a junior mathematics and economics major and the membership director of College Democrats at Pitt, called Frost the “voice for young people in Congress.” 

“Maxwell Frost is a very strong Gen Z leader,” Brown said. “There’s so much more at stake than there are in previous elections … and we believe leadership is about who you bring up and not who you bring down.”

In 2023, Frost introduced the Office of Gun Violence Prevention Act of 2023, a policy close to his heart as “a young person who’s grown up in this mass shooting generation.”

“I’m a survivor of gun violence. This is something that’s very personal to me,” Frost said. “[Gun restriction is] not about taking away people’s rights, but giving us all the fundamental rights in life, without the fear of being gunned down in our communities.”

The upcoming presidential election is “going to be a close one,” Frost said. He urged voters to get out and cast their ballots, because it’s “the greatest thing we can do as citizens.”

“We’re the underdogs right now,” Frost said, “but I believe [Democrats are] gonna win, because I know people value their freedoms. And I know you’ve heard this a million times: that the road of the White House goes straight through Pennsylvania.”

As a swing state, Pennsylvania is a “very important state to win,” Frost said. But the city of Pittsburgh is especially important, and not just because of electoral college votes. 

“Pittsburgh is a city and a town that really shows what America is,” Frost said in an interview with the Pitt News. “We talk about working class people, we talk about young people. It’s a very diverse city, and I think it’s an important place for any politician to be … to really understand what [people] are going through and have these conversations.”

Frost emphasized the value and importance of working-class citizens and voters this year.

“People who go to work for a living, which are the majority of people in this country, oftentimes they don’t have their voices heard in Washington [D.C.],” Frost said to the Pitt News. “So having somebody like Kamala Harris come here, Tim Walz — surrogates, like myself — in this campaign, I think is really important.”

Frost urges people who are unsure about this election to “vote selfishly.”

“Think about you and your life,” Frost said to the Pitt News. “If you’re thinking about housing, there’s only one person who has a plan to help the housing crisis. It’s Kamala Harris.”

Throughout his time in Pittsburgh, Frost is encouraging all students to vote in the Presidential election and “make sure your voices are heard.”

“We’ve the ability to decide this election as young people,” Frost said. “Gen. Z, millennials will make up a third of the electorate this cycle – one-third [of people] with that power. We can decide the present and the future of this nation.”