The PARC library was packed with students at 7:23 p.m. when Mike McGee got a call from Associated Student Government Election Commissioner Paul David Shrader. The Weinberg senior told him he had won the ASG presidency with 60 percent of 4,210 votes.
After a half hour of screaming, hugging and phone calls, McGee, a Communication junior, said he did not expect his margin of victory.
“This morning wasn’t the greatest morning, with the e-mails and the violations and the letters,” McGee said. “But we kept going.”
While at the Arch in the afternoon, McGee said he was surprised by the number of people that did not know there was a runoff election at all, campaign manager Alex Sims said. Those individuals were likely in the minority, as candidate preferences had likely solidified by Friday, she said.
“(Voters) were probably set in their ways,” the SESP junior said. “By 2 p.m., people had already voted.”
The lack of swing voters was responsible for McGee’s large margin of victory, campaign manager Miles Drummond said. “Our supporters were aware of Mike and Tommy’s work on campus,” he said. “We didn’t have to coerce them to vote.”
The fallout of Academic Director-elect and McGee supporter Mohammad Safdari’s controversial e-mail was a key issue on Friday. The e-mail attacked the Bill Pulte-Patrick Dawson campaign with a number of questionable charges. McGee’s campaign circulated an official statement on Friday that called the e-mail a “bad decision based on false assumptions,” and asked voters to focus on the issues.
Vice President-elect Tommy Smithburg said campaign organizers urged supporters not to lash out at the Pulte campaign after the election committee levied sanctions against the McGee campaign. Pulte successfully lobbied the election committee to put a statement on the ballot detailing the lack of evidence behind Safdari’s claims.
“Everyone wanted to fight back,” Smithburg said. “There were genuine people who pulled us back and kept us on message.”
McGee praised Pulte’s campaign for both its conduct and its outreach campaign, which McGee said motivated him meet more voters Friday and helped generate excitement about the campaign.
He added that one of ASG’s first tasks would be to try channel the campus interest in the elections toward encouraging students to join ASG.
“That’s something that we fail to do every year,” McGee said.
When McGee talked to his supporters as they made plans for the victory celebration, he mentioned another pressing need.
“We need to give PARC their library back,” he said.
Related:McGee-Smithburg ticket winsPulte reflects on his campaign
