In a race that at one point was as close as a 17 vote margin, Emily McLain was declared the winner of the ASUO presidential election Friday night.
With 1,897 votes, McLain and running mate Chii-San SunOwen barely edged out Sara Hamilton and Athan Papailiou, who received 1,752 votes.
“I’m absolutely excited,” McLain said. “I congratulate our opponents on a great race.”
McLain said all day Friday, she and SunOwen worked “really hard” to talk to students and make one final push to get people to vote. She said although she couldn’t decide whether she thought her ticket would come out victorious, toward the end of the day, “I really started to think that we could do this.”
Although Hamilton and Papailiou did not capture the executive spot, their slate, the “Campaign for Change” swept every other seat in the election.
Jacob Daniels, who managed Hamilton and Papailiou’s campaign, said he had a “mixed bag” of feelings about the results.
Daniels said he was impressed the Campaign for Change swept the other seats but said he thinks McLain and SunOwen won because they were able to capture the support of many executive candidates who did not make it past the primary election. He said he thinks McLain and SunOwen will work well with the newly elected candidates.
“I hope they have the utmost success next year,” Daniels said. “No one’s ever doubted Emily’s ability to build bridges.”
Oscar Guerra of the “Progressive Action Coalition” (PAC-8), lost the race for EMU Board Senate Seat 6 to Campaign for Change’s Kate Jones. Guerra said McLain and SunOwen deserved to win and the fact Campaign for Change had more candidates than any other slate accounted for its sweep of the election.
“There was definitely support for Emily and Sun after people realized they were the best qualified,” he said.
Guerra said it is now up to McLain and SunOwen to appoint good candidates to open positions and to “create an open dialogue for all students.”
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