The CORE Collective slate, led by Kevin Guo and Aaron Horowitz, emerged victorious in Undergraduate Student Government (USG) elections held from April 20–24 per preliminary results released by the Elections and Rules (E&R) Committee. The party’s candidates also won every cabinet race.
Turnout in this year’s election was up nearly 115 percent compared to last year, increasing from 892 votes to 1,910—about 27 percent of undergraduates. This year was also the first time that elections used ranked-choice voting, following a resolution passed last quarter.
Under the ranked choice system, students could rank candidates in order of preference for each cabinet seat. After votes were tallied, ballots cast for candidates that placed last were reassigned to those voters’ second choices. Candidates were eliminated through this process until one received a majority of remaining votes.
Guo, a Class of 2027 representative and vice chair of College Council, and Horowitz, a representative for the Class of 2029, were elected president and vice president, respectively, replacing fourth-year Elijah Jenkins and third-year Alex Fuentes. Fuentes did not run for re-election.
The pair earned 41 percent of first-choice votes and won the final round with 63 percent of the vote, defeating runners-up William Moller and Marcus Borden of the New Generation Party. Daniel de Beer and Vaani Kapoor of the Ida Noyes Party and Grace Beatty and Esther Ma of the Premium Party placed third and fourth, respectively.
Class of 2028 Representative Destiney Samare was elected vice president of advocacy and will replace incumbent Andrea Pita Mendez, who ran for vice president of student affairs on the Ida Noyes slate.
Aidan Keesler, another representative for the Class of 2028, was elected vice president for student affairs, replacing Malaina Culbertson, who unsuccessfully ran an independent campaign for re-election.
Third-year Yero Diamanka was elected vice president for campus life, replacing graduating fourth-year Annie Yang.
Class of 2029 Representative Audrey Krajewski was elected undergraduate liaison to the Board of Trustees, replacing graduating fourth-year Timothy Lu.
Samare, Keesler, Diamanka, and Krajewski all were members of the CORE Collective slate.
In the College Council elections, Pita Mendez of the Ida Noyes Party; Rachel Singer, Alex Gao, and Eleanor McNichols of the Maroon Party; and independent candidate Kyle Obermeyer were elected to represent the Class of 2027. Esther Ma and Grace Beatty of the Premium Party; Isaac Cohen of the Maroon Party; Samuel Davis of the New Generation Party; and independent candidate Elise Saidenberg were elected to represent the Class of 2028. Gavin Wynn, Victoria Liu, Logan Rettino, and Jason Xu of the Maroon Party, along with independent candidate Grace Page, were elected to represent the Class of 2029.
Although Horowitz garnered the most votes in the Class of 2029 CC election, he was eliminated from contention after accepting the executive vice president position.
Two ballot measures were also passed with overwhelming majorities: a constitutional amendment to create a Judicial Council for USG was approved with 77 percent of the vote, and a referendum calling for the Board of Trustees to remove Thomas Pritzker from their ranks passed with 82 percent of the vote.
Editor’s note: Class of 2028 Representative Grace Beatty and Executive Vice President–elect Aaron Horowitz are staff members of the Maroon. They had no involvement in the reporting or editing of this story.
Editor’s note, April 25, 10:27 a.m.: Election results were updated to reflect corrections to vote tallies made by E&R after the initial release of the results.
