Candidates endorsed by the Students of Color Coalition (SOCC) won a majority of seats in the ASSU Undergraduate Senate on Saturday as undergraduate voters elected 10 of 12 coalition members to next year’s legislative body.
Four candidates from the Students United Now (SUN) coalition and one other candidate were elected.
The last time SOCC-endorsed candidates controlled this many seats in the Senate was in 2006, when 10 of SOCC’s endorsed candidates were elected. Seven SOCC-endorsed candidates won in each of the 2007, 2008 and 2009 elections.
SOCC-endorsed candidates elected on Saturday are, in order of highest to lowest number of votes: Madeline Hawes ‘13, Deepa Kannappan ‘13, incumbent Michael Cruz ‘12, Juany Torres ‘13, Ben Jensen ‘12, Daniel Khalessi ‘13, Rafael Vasquez ‘12, Kamil Saeid ‘13, Robin Perani ‘13 and Pat Bruny ‘13, who was the lowest elected vote-getter of the race with 797 votes.
Four candidates from the SUN coalition were elected with more votes than Bruny, including freshmen Will Seaton, Stewart Macgregor-Dennis, Rebecca Sachs and Carolyn Simmons. Seaton is a Daily sports writer.
The last candidate elected to the Senate, Khaled Alshawi ’13, was not affiliated with either group. Alshawi received 815 votes.
Hawes, who was elected with 1,159 votes, credits her victory to the interactions she had with individual students.
“The conversations I had with people were very real,” Hawes said. “I think that I came away knowing their needs and they came away knowing who I was.”
In an election that traditionally divides candidates along endorsement lines, some incoming senators remain optimistic about future collaboration.
“Now that we’re elected, we’re all united,” said Saeid, who was endorsed by SOCC. “We’re all Stanford students.”
“I hope we can all work together and destroy any biases that we may have, because I remember that this year, SBS and SOCC senators didn’t get along,” said Torres, who was also endorsed by SOCC. She was referring to Students for a Better Stanford, a 2009 Senate candidates coalition. “We should make sure that SUN and SOCC candidates will work together in the upcoming year.”
Alshawi said running without the support of a coalition or endorsement group presented difficulties as well as some advantages.
“I definitely had to stay up more hours and skip more classes to flyer dorms and get to hall meetings,” he said, but he added that it was “cool” to be able to say he was running independently.
The four-person team in the Students With Experience (S.Ex.) coalition, though endorsed by current ASSU President David Gobaud, a coterminal student in computer science, were shut out from the Senate. Their highest vote-winner, junior Danny Crichton, placed 18th, 44 votes shy of a Senate seat.
“We started late in the game,” said Crichton, who is also a columnist for The Daily. “I think it came down to organization earlier in the race.”
Two current senators also credited SOCC’s outreach efforts with contributing to the success of its candidates.
Senator Shelley Gao ’11, a Daily columnist, pointed to a “very extensive GOTV [get-out-the-vote] effort.” She would not discuss how she believes the dynamics of next year’s Senate might reflect endorsements, but noted that serving as a senator is “very different than campaigning.”
“The results of the election reflect a particular sentiment within certain politically active communities on campus,” added Anton Zietsman ’12, the current Senate Appropriations chair, who also emphasized the success of SOCC at turnout and outreach. Zietsman said he will be working to maintain “continuity” between this year’s and next year’s Senate.
One outgoing senator also highlighted the difficulties that new senators could face.
“These [newly-elected] senators don’t know what they’re getting into,” said Mohammad Ali ’10, a current senator. Ali was elected to the Senate last year with the highest number of votes.
Election results are set to be confirmed at this Tuesday’s Senate meeting.
A version of this story originally appeared online on April 10.