North by Northwestern

“What was the number? Cool.”

 

Hanging up with the election representative, Weinberg junior Victor Shao reached out to give his running mate Brad Stewart a hug. Cheers erupted in the Delta Upsilon house, breaking the silence, as the campaign team gathered for a jubilant communal embrace.  

 

“I heard it wrong at first,” Shao said. “We won 60.54 percent [of the vote], I thought they said 50.54, but somewhere in there I heard, 'You won.'”

 

Shao will serve as the next ASG President, after receiving 60.54 percent of the vote in Friday's runoff election, the Election Committee announced. Stewart, a Medill junior, will serve alongside Shao as ASG Executive Vice President.

 

Out of 3,330 ballots submitted in the runoff election, 2,016 went to Shao-Stewart and 1,178 to SESP junior Kameron Dodge and Communication junior Steven Monacelli, according to the ASG website. There were 136 "no confidence" votes.

 

The pair almost won the initial election Wednesday against Dodge and Weinberg junior Dan Tully. Garnering almost 42 percent of the vote, Shao-Stewart missed the majority needed to win by less than 200 votes. Overall, 3,597 ballots were cast in Wednesday’s election.

 

When the runoff was announced, Stewart said the team decided to continue with the same campaign tactics as before. According to Stewart, the campaign's “Express Yourself” slogan was still resonating with students. The campaign team covered campus sidewalks with a fresh round of chalk, and extra endorsements came through from newly elected ASG Student Life Vice President Alex Van Atta and ASG Academic Vice President Neil Mehta.

 

“We gave it our best effort,” Stewart said. “That’s something that we’re really proud of.”

 

Shao, who spent ten hours at Norris yesterday, said he had never before experienced the building “to that capacity.”

 

"I’ve learned more in these past six months than I have in my life,” Shao said. “I’m so grateful for the support that everyone has shown us.”

 

To celebrate, Stewart said he will hang out with the campaign team, which has given “110 percent” of their effort, then, “obviously we will go to sleep.”

 

After catching up on rest and schoolwork, Stewart said, he and Shao will go through transitions with the outgoing ASG President and Executive VP. The team has already begun discussions with ASG Executive Board members.

 

“We’re getting started right away,” Stewart said.

 

Dodge, who ran alongside Monacelli as co-president, said it’s a “bummer” to lose the election but said he respects Shao and Stewart for their hard work.

 

“We congratulate Victor and Brad on a phenomenal campaign, and their campaign team, and the way they got out the vote,” Dodge said. “It was really awesome and we were proud to be in the run off.”

 

Moving forward, Dodge said the campaign has made him a better “Northwestern student” and “consumer of Northwestern” and that he will use this new experience to lead the campus, minus the position name.

 

“We still believe in the things that we said and we still believe in the partnerships that we can build,” Dodge said. “We want to not just have that be a campaign promise, but have that be something we can move forward with in our daily lives even if we don’t have the title.”