Congressional candidate Brandt Robinson is teaming up with one of the country’s best-selling authors for a civic engagement event in downtown St. Petersburg later this month.
Robinson, a longtime Pinellas County educator and candidate for Florida’s 13th Congressional District, will host Diary of a Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney at the St. Petersburg Coliseum June 18 for an evening focused on voter participation, community involvement and political engagement ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The event will include voter registration opportunities, audience questions, games and activities, photo opportunities and book signings with Kinney, whose Wimpy Kid series has sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide.
For Robinson, the event stems from a friendship that began during the 2024 election cycle.
“Jeff emailed me in January 2024,” Robinson told the Poliverse. “He was following me on TikTok and, because it was the start of the election year, asked if he could come to Florida and have dinner so I could help him use his platform for the election.”
The relationship continued beyond that initial meeting. Robinson later visited Kinney and his wife, Julie, at their independent bookstore in Massachusetts, and the two began discussing ways to encourage greater civic participation among younger Americans.
That idea ultimately evolved into the upcoming St. Petersburg event. “I hope attendees, especially so many more who are younger, will have an experience grounded in civic engagement and get more involved in the upcoming midterms,” Robinson said. “Jeff and I will talk and take questions about how we got to this point as a nation, as well as what we must do to make our country what it must become.”
While Robinson is currently running for Congress, he said the event is intended as a forum for people who may not typically engage with politics.
“We created this event because we know that Jeff has, with his books, socialized two generations of young people,” Robinson said. “We wanted to share a more intimate setting to serve as a forum to educate younger voters about all that is happening and what they are concerned with, but also a model for how to get more involved.”
Educator and bilingual children’s author Silvio Delgado will emcee the evening. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. at the Coliseum, 535 Fourth Ave. N., with programming scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Attendees will have an opportunity to have one book signed and take photos with Kinney.
Tickets are $20, or $30 here, with an event-specific T-shirt included.