And then there were two.
Eric Svendsen announced Wednesday that he was dropping out of the Associated Student Government presidential race, saying he had lost faith in his platform and that his campaign was unable to overcome the very apathy it was fighting.
“They would have been electing me on a platform that really wasn’t what I believed in,” Svendsen said. “It was compromised from the beginning. If I was elected, I would have felt like a hypocrite.”
Svendsen said his campaign lost momentum during the course of the week.
“We planned an all-out assault on the campus, but we were restricted by pressure to conform to certain rules,” he said. “We didn’t necessarily have complete dedication, either.”
But in an unofficial Daily survey conducted this week, Svendsen finished second, 18 percentage points behind front-runner Adam Humann.
“Wow, that’s a hard one to interpret,” said George Newman, Svendsen’s campaign manager. “We felt like a lot of campus wasn’t responding to the message.”
Newman said that when collecting signatures for Svendsen’s petition, students seemed unenthusiastic about the Speech sophomore.
“A lot of the response we got was people saying, ‘I like that I like that idea but I’m not going to vote for you because you don’t have the experience,'” he said. “But the whole point of the campaign was that you don’t have to have experience.”
Jason Reynolds said he had planned on voting for Svendsen because he was a likable candidate.
“I was voting for him because I didn’t know anyone else, and I thought he would make a good president,” said Reynolds, a McCormick freshman.
Reynolds said he probably would not vote in the election.
Newman said despite dropping out of the race, Svendsen and his campaign organizers took the election seriously.
“This campaign wasn’t a joke — we don’t want people to think that,” said Newman, a Weinberg sophomore. “It just stopped being a good time.”
And they’ll have to take it seriously if Svendsen wins anyway — ASG regulations prevent his name from being removed from the ballot.
Svendsen’s announcement leaves Humann and Stefan Beck as the remaining candidates for ASG president. Elections will be held Tuesday.
Humann said the decision caught him off-guard.
“I’m surprised,” said Humann, a Weinberg junior. “Even if it was an impetuous decision, he had good, concrete reasons for running.”
Beck, a Speech sophomore, said he did not expect Svendsen’s decision to affect his campaign because Svendsen supporters might not vote at all now.
“I have to make sure to bring in anyone he would have carried,” he said.
Newman said another factor in the decision to drop out was that Svendsen felt unprepared for the day-to-day duties of the ASG president.
“Eric has expressed a lot of concern that he felt bogged down with all the interviews and personal appearances,” he said. “If he were to win, dealing with that kind of structure on a daily basis would be quite taxing.”
Svendsen said he is uncertain of his future plans, although he said he might support a write-in candidate.
Campaign organizers do have some plans — an all-campus party 7 p.m. Thursday at The Rock.
“We encourage people to bring whatever they would like, to have a good time and to not worry about rules and regulations,” Newman said. “There will be music.”
