Members of the More Party shared hugs and laughter in the Alumni Lounge on Thursday as news of their electoral victories spread.
More presidential candidate Drew Gilmore won the position with 36.7 percent of the vote. Ashton Toone of the Elevate Party earned 30.96 percent and Blake Stayton of the United Party of the People earned 27.81 percent of the vote. Vice presidential candidate Kevyanna Rawls won 39.6 percent of the vote to Mitchell King’s 29.6 percent (Elevate) and Allison Nguyen's 26.45 percent (United Party of the People).
“It’s just been amazing,†Gilmore said. “We’re definitely going to make sure to accomplish more Tiger pride, more inclusion and civic responsibility on campus … bringing SGA back to the students and really making sure we now hear the voice of the students and translate that.â€
Senators at large Jeffrey Houston (More) earned 3.2 percent, Joshua Wylie (More) earned 3.13 percent, Andrew Mok (United Party of the People) earned 2.66 percent, Taylor Shennett (More) earned 2.56 percent and Robert Dockery (More) earned 2.49 percent.
Presidential votes tallied to a total of 2,283 votes — 889 more than the number of students who went to the polls last year.Â
Gilmore said that he believes social media played a big role in his party’s win.
“I had a lot of people come up to me and they were like ‘you’re the dude I saw on Instagram,'†Gilmore said.
More Party vice presidential candidate Kevyanna Rawls said she was still “all over the place†following the results.
“Thank you for the opportunity to be able to serve the students and serve them in a way that they felt was appropriate,†Rawls said.
The English and African American studies major with a minor in sociology contributed to her party’s victory to their platform of “inclusion†and making sure everyone felt like the More Party was here for them and not just “here for the position.â€
“Some people would walk by and they just didn’t feel like they were included,†Rawls said. “We want to talk to you, we want to hear what you have to say and we want to hear how you feel about the situation.â€
While the More Party celebrated in the Alumni Lounge, The United Party of the People caught word of the results in an office across the second floor of the UC.
“Congratulations to Drew and Kevyanna,†Stayton said. “They're both very bright and very talented. I'm excited to see what they do with SGA. I'm very proud of all my senators and everybody in the UP party for running such a clean campaign.â€
Ninety-nine candidates ran for student government office this year — more than the past four years at U of M SGA elections, where the number candidates ranged from 50-70 students. In 2014, there were 57 candidates total. 2015 saw 70 candidates and in 2016 there were 54.
“I think the increased competition was definitely good, seeing as how the turnout was double,†21-year-old Stayton said. “I think that’s huge.â€
Still, some students said that there should be a cutoff number for the amount of candidates allowed to run.
“I’d say that 10 candidates is probably the max that you’d wanna give people,†23-year-old foreign language major Melissa Chambers said. “Otherwise I don’t think people would know much more than that.â€
Abeer Abdelrahim was one of the 99 students who ran for a student government positions this year. He won the engineering senator position as a More Party candidate by receiving 50 votes.
“Many people say our country is being represented by people that only represent a small percent of the population,†Abdelrahim said. “Though we can't fix the national government as easily as we may like, we can still put our morals into the government that runs our college life.â€
Hira Quereshi and Gus Carrington contributed to this storyÂ
