By Jared Paben
News Editor
Despite pulling in less than half the votes ASUO Executive race front-runners Ashley Rees and Jael Anker-Lagos received, candidates Adam Walsh and Kyla Coy managed to advance to the general election after last week’s student government primary contest.
With the general election polls closing today at 5 p.m., the 462 votes separating the two tickets may mean Rees and Anker-Lagos are shoo-ins for the government’s top posts.
Yet Walsh and Coy, who are now endorsed by the former Jacob Daniels-Adi Cargni and Nick Hudson-Allison Sprouse executive tickets, think the support from their former opponents will generate a close race.
Rees said she believes those endorsements won’t have an impact on the campaign.
Daniels and Cargni garnered 423 votes
during the primary election, just 22 votes behind Walsh and Coy. Hudson and Sprouse pulled in 265.
If those voters all turned out for Walsh in the general election, it would boost him beyond Rees’ numbers.
Evan Geier, who told the Emerald he is not supporting any candidate in the general election, garnered 250 votes.
Daniels said although it will “take a small
miracle to win it,” he hopes to help the campaign by rallying his supporters, especially those in his fraternity, behind Walsh and Coy.
“It’s going to be very tough. I’m not expecting all of them to turn out,” Daniels said. “The best I can promise him is 200 votes from my area.”
Hudson also said he was confident the support of former executive candidates will
go far for Walsh and
Coy’s campaign.
“When you have five tickets that didn’t move on supporting one ticket, you know that there’s going to be an impact,” he said.
Rees disagreed.
“I doubt it’ll have an impact on the campaign,” Rees said, pointing out that her ticket gains credibility through supporters who know the issues “inside and out,” such as current ASUO President Adam Petkun.
Student Senator Stephanie Erickson, also supporting Rees and Anker-Lagos, said her support will have an effect because she is involved in many student groups. Those groups trust her and may vote similarly, she said.
University Political Science assistant professor Joel Bloom, who has studied voting behavior, said that in a student government election, “endorsements without organizational support is worthless.”
“Without organizational support, people aren’t paying enough
attention to know
who endorsed who,” Bloom said.
However, Bloom said the voting numbers are so low in a student election that it could make a difference if the former candidates help Walsh and Coy rally support for the ticket.
Walsh said Hudson and Daniels have visited sororities with him to rally support.
Hudson said both he and Daniels are from the greek system and were able to vouch for Walsh.
Daniels also said he sent out a message to the approximately
700 members of his group on
Thefacebook, originally created for his own executive bid, and asked them to support Walsh in the
general election.
Walsh said as long as voter turnout is reasonably high, he and Coy have a chance of winning. But it will hurt them if voter turnout is considerably lower in the general election, as it historically is, he said.
“As long as the kids that have supported us in the primary and the kids that supported the other platforms in the primary turn out again to vote, then I think we have a very good chance of winning,” Walsh said. “I think it’ll be a close election. … Whichever way it goes, I cannot see a blowout happening.”

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Senior News Reporter Parker Howell contributed to this report