In light of the 2025 Associated Students of the University of Oregon spring election, the UO Student Power slate, led by presidential candidate Prissila Moreno, has relied heavily on endorsements to gather student support.

UO Student Power’s endorsements consisted of athletes, students, campus leaders and organizations.

According to Taliek Lopez-DuBoff, the presidential candidate for the Unite UO slate, the slate relied less on individual endorsements on social media, and more on texting and face-to-face interactions with students.

Both slates couldn’t be officially endorsed by campus clubs and organizations that receive incidental fees from ASUO, according to the ASUO 2025 Spring Election Rules.

UOSP avoided this constraint by listing the club involvement of individual endorsements below their names on Instagram posts, according to Moreno. 

One campus leader who endorsed UO Student Power is Valentine Bentz, a co-director of the Radical Organizing and Activism Resource Center and UO Grove Garden Coordinator.

“I think UO Student Power has the potential to make ASUO fight an institution, and what I mean by fighting institution is something that’s not in admin’s hands,” Bentz said. “Student government is only one small part of the fight for meeting students’ needs, but it’s essential that it aligns with building power on campus.”

Bentz said he also supported UOSP’s outreach techniques and is more familiar with members of the slate from collaborating on advocacy work.

“If you look at the folks who are running (for UOSP), they have a lot of experience in grassroots organizations, and experience going out and engaging directly with students,” Bentz said.

Both UO Student Workers Union and UO Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation endorsed UOSP as well. 

According to both unions, their executive committees made the decision.

Victoria Robison, a member of UOSW’s executive committee, said one of their main reasons for endorsing UOSP was communication.

“I think that we endorsed UO Student Power because they wanted to work with us and they reached out,” Robison said. 

“They (UOSP) have policies that our executive committee believes represent important things… (like) protecting international students… and working with labor unions,” Robison said.

According to GTFF’s VP for Organizing Mathew Miyagi Tuten, GTFF’s Committee of Political Education discusses potential endorsements and then brings their decision to the executive council.

Tuten said GTFF mainly endorsed UOSP because they appreciate their free speech messaging. 

Unite UO also campaigned on free speech and Lopez-Duboff helped pass a free speech resolution in May 2024, but Tuten said it came down to experience.

“I have been involved with people from UOSP and it is one thing to say you support free speech and it is another thing to have a good track record,” Tuten said.

UOSP reached out to UOSW and GTFF directly, according to Robison and Tuten; whereas Unite UO took a broader approach, according to Lopez-Duboff.

“Yeah, we hadn’t reached out to them but I think like I said before, we have people from all over our team that are represented in those different sorts of unions,” Lopez-Duboff said.

UOSP was also endorsed by Oregon Ducks player Luke Moga, incoming player Akili Smith Jr. and others before their endorsement video was taken down from Instagram. 

Moreno said the endorsements were taken down on April 8 in a “very impulsive” move when “concerns around his (Moga’s) politics” arose. 

“If I could go back I probably wouldn’t have taken it down and that’s because a lot of the things that people were saying surrounding his support for Trump was based on the fact that he follows Trump on Instagram,” Moreno said. “I don’t think that it’s weird to follow the president of the United States to be well informed from a primary source.”

Lopez-Duboff said their slate received support from Align magazine and Women in Business, but didn’t find it “necessarily pertinent” to post the support on social media.

“I don’t think this election will be won on social media anyway, so I mean while we of course appreciate the support from all these folks, we just haven’t really posted any of them, which I think is ok for us,” Lopez-Duboff said.