Vision Party celebrated a landslide victory in the Student Senate and cleared the executive ticket contest Wednesday night.
While Vision Party eagerly anticipated results in the Reitz Union, Change Party sequestered itself in a Turlington Hall classroom — a switch from previous election nights when all parties gathered in the student union to hear results.
Over two days of voting, UF students cast 9,611 total ballots, cementing Vision’s supermajority in the senate with at least 90 seats, according to Supervisor of Elections Lexi Sederopoulos. Student voter turnout declined 6.7% from Spring 2024, when 10,304 students voted, and 23% from Spring 2023 elections, when 12,472 students voted.
Vision secured at least 46 out of the 50 contested senate seats this election cycle. Change Party won just two senate seats: the College of the Arts and one graduate seat. The overwhelming loss comes after several Change members switched parties or ran as independent candidates this Spring.
A Vision Party candidate ran for the veterinary medicine senate seat, but received zero votes, despite running uncontested. The Alligator couldn’t confirm who will serve in the seat come March. Two Vision candidates earned the exact same number of votes — 189 — for a graduate senate seat. At the time of publication, The Alligator couldn’t confirm if both candidates will get seats or if only one person will serve.
Watch Party, an emerging third party advocating for fair elections, ran 18 senate candidates, along with the group’s founder Alfredo Ortiz as its presidential candidate and Ajay Pooran as his running mate. The party’s executive ticket won only 153 — or 2% — of 9,507 total votes in the race.
Senators-elect will take office next month.
Vision takes all three executive positions
Vision easily secured the executive ticket with nearly three-quarters of votes, instating Blake Cox, Jade Gonzalez and Johanna Moncy as UF’s next student body president, vice president and treasurer. The ticket, through Vision’s campaign manager Freddi Rappoport, declined an interview with The Alligator Wednesday night.
“We had an incredibly passionate slate,” said Drew Landsaw, another Vision campaign manager. “Pretty much every person on our slate tabled 24 hours out of 24 hours the last two days.”
Attendees watched from the top floors of the Reitz as blue and black Vision shirts, posters and digital cameras swamped the ground floor.
Some crowd members waved cardboard faces of the newly elected executive ticket. Others wore hats that said “I heart Freddi” and “I heart Drew” in reference to Vision’s campaign managers.
At one point, the crowd gathered in the middle of the ground floor and chanted “I believe that we will win.”
Change Party suffers losses
Meanwhile, on the second floor of Turlington Hall, about 25 Change Party members watched Minecraft videos and an eight-hour Bernie Sanders filibuster set to lo-fi music as they waited for the election results. Construction near the Reitz Union pond caused the last-minute change of location, according to a text message from Change Party’s treasurer candidate Max Banach.
Change has consistently lost ground in the senate since Vision ran its first slate of candidates in Fall 2023. The last time Change Party won a majority in the senate was Spring 2023, when it secured 51 seats.
Straining to hear the live stream of the Reitz Union announcements, Change members listened to the muffled voice of the Supervisor of Elections Lexi Sederopoulos repeat “Vision” dozens of times. Some went quiet, dropping their heads in their hands. Others laughed and cheered for their retirement from the student government.
When Andrew Larsen, the incumbent College of the Arts senator, secured one of the two Change seats, the room erupted into applause. Larsen said he had mixed feelings about the results, expressing excitement about the opportunity to continue his work but sharing the disappointment with the rest of his party.
He called UF’s student government one of the most influential in the country, but said voter apathy is preventing it from reaching its full potential.
“People are giving up on the systems around them, and frankly, they're being given a lot of good reason to do that,” he said.
The other Change winner, Anshika Kushwaha, won one of the 12 contested graduate school seats.
Change presidential candidate Anamika Naidu was unsurprised by the party’s poor performance. She’s ready to leave student government behind, she said, and is confident the new faces who made up the majority of Change’s slate can revive the party.
“I’m not naive,” she said. “I expected a result like this, but I feel good. I had a lot of fun.”
Change Party President Meagan Lamey said she was proud of what her party had accomplished given the “tense” election environment. Her goal, she said, was to cultivate a supportive community in the wake of the results.
“We’re really focused on being there for each other,” she said. “[We want] to make sure everyone knows they did a good job.”
Joaquin Marcelino, Change Party’s vice presidential candidate, said they’re hopeful for the party’s future despite the losses. Although they won roughly a quarter of the executive ticket vote with Naidu — bringing their time in student government to an end — Marcelino is proud of the influence they were able to have while in office.
“There is a political machine that is a century old that we are up against,” Marcelino said. “I know our message really resonates with a lot of what the student body wants.”
Students weigh in
Over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of UF students voted — some opting to support their friends in the running, a handful fulfilling Greek life requirements and a number of students who wanted a say in policies defining their academic careers.
At the Reitz Union Wednesday morning, Hayden Abell voted for Vision, citing the party’s well-established support for Greek life. The 20-year-old UF sustainability sophomore said her involvement in a sorority is what drove her to vote Vision. However, she still finds it important to look at the platforms of all parties.
“I feel like it’s obviously the best chance of capturing what the entire university wants,” she said.
Other students disagreed with Vision’s supposed support for Greek life. Andres Espinosa, a 22-year-old industrial engineering senior, said he’s predominantly voted for Change Party since his sophomore year because of his “aversion to fraternities.”
“I've always associated Gator or Vision with fraternities,” Espinosa said. “They don't shy away from that.”
Some first-time voters didn’t shy away from the polls, either. Zoe Obi, a 20-year-old UF media and societies major, was frustrated with Marston Science Library reverting back to a 24/5 model last Fall, insufficient funding for non-Greek life students and the university’s funding cuts for the Gainesville Regional Transit system.
Obi said she most aligns with Change Party’s policy platform and planned to vote for it.
“I need RTS to be better so badly, not only for us on campus but for so many people around us in Gainesville,” she said. “People need transportation more than people need ski trips and date functions.”
Students like 28-year-old Syed Ammar-Hussain take their role as a stakeholder seriously. He thinks having a voice in campus life is important as a first-year applied data science graduate student.
“Taking part in elections helps me govern or dictate what my future is going to look like," he said. “That way, I get to dictate how my surroundings will eventually turn out as well.”
Ammar-Hussain also hoped other students would show up to the polls.
“It’s every individual’s right,” he said. “It is your birthright.”
This is an Alligator staff report.
