Even with the good news of Thursday’s ASUO primary election results, Nilda Brooklyn and running mate Joy Nair, and Eric Bailey and running mate Jeff Oliver said they hoped for something more.
Brooklyn and Nair said they thought they could garner more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary election and win outright without a general election.
“We always had that hope [that] maybe we’d win that 51 percent,” Nair said. “We knew that of all the candidates, we had the strongest base.”
Brooklyn and Nair received 624 votes out of more than 1,500 total votes — not quite the 51 percent they’d hoped for.
But Bailey and Oliver, who received 237 votes, were also somewhat shocked by the results.
“We thought we would easily get into the generals,” Oliver said. “Eric and I are moving on, but we have our work cut out for us.”
Another Executive candidate team, Bret Jacobson and Matt Cook, received 356 votes, but were removed from the ballot Thursday.
Even though both advancing tickets had some air let out of their tires, both said they are ready to get out next week and campaign for another four days.
A big objective on Brooklyn and Nair’s list is to “make this campus feel that there’s an election going on,” Brooklyn said.
“I want students to be invested in how this school’s going to be next year,” she said. “This is their chance to make that statement of what they want from the U of O.”
Brooklyn said that last year, a person couldn’t walk down 13th Avenue without getting a flier or seeing a campaign T-shirt. This year, she said, many people do not even realize there is an ASUO election going on.
“We’ll ask people if they voted, and they’ll say yeah — eight months ago,” Brooklyn said.
While the two plan to head out full-force, they would not reveal specifics, saying only that they will continue handing out fliers, putting up posters and talking to students about their platform.
“We’re not going to tell about our exact plans, but [it will be] something really crazy that ties into the campaign,” Nair said. “We’re just going to make sure we’re out there all the time rain or shine.”
Bailey and Oliver also plan to encourage students to vote. But they have a few more ideas in mind to keep their campaign momentum going.
In addition to handing out fliers and putting up posters for a second week, the two will visit the greek houses that they haven’t already hit. They are also going to make buttons.
“We didn’t have buttons before, and now we will,” Bailey said.
All efforts lead to making their campaign more visible and letting students know what they stand for, Bailey said, something that he and Oliver have done less than Brooklyn and Nair so far.
With a difference of 387 votes between themselves and the Brooklyn-Nair team, Bailey and Oliver have an uphill battle ahead of them, Oliver said.
But Bailey remains optimistic.
“I think it’s well within our reach,” Bailey said. “We’re just as good candidates for the job — if not better.”