Although Associated Student Government executive board candidates usually have to worry about overcoming the opposition, this year two candidates have found themselves with no competition at all.
Both current Student Life Vice President Katie Bradford and Academic Vice President Gabby Daniels are running for re-election this week. Both students are running unopposed.
In ASG President Claire Lew’s four years at NU, she has seen three people run unopposed, but no one in her years has filled the same position twice. The SESP senior said one of the reasons these types of positions can go unopposed is that they do not receive as much name recognition in terms of getting credit for projects.
Bradford said she was unaware that there was no competition for her position until she submitted the requisite 200 signatures to publicly announce her candidacy. She admitted she was disappointed.
“In some ways, I am disappointed that no one on my committee wanted to run,” she said. “On the other hand, I’m excited for another year. So it’s nice to not have competition right now.”
Lew said there are both positive and potential negative effects of holding the same position twice.
“I think the advantage is it creates a great continuity in terms of carrying forward projects,” she said. “I think a potential negative side effect might be that a candidate might get really complacent having not gone through a vigorous vetting process.”
“The whole purpose of a campaign is to communicate and demonstrate to students why you are the best person to do this job for them and to best represent them,” she added.
Next year, Bradford said she plans to prepare her committee members more in hopes of inspiring them to succeed her.
Because she is running unopposed, her campaign this year is very different from her last one. In the Progressive Alliance debate, she did not have to debate against anyone else, so she discussed her future goals.
Because it is more difficult to get students to work for a campaign once they find out a candidate is running unopposed, a lack of manpower contributed to her inability to chalk or post flyers, she said. Instead, she focused on talking to students directly.
“I think that because I’ve done it this past year, a lot of the people I’ve talked to are confident in my abilities,” the McCormick junior said.
Bradford said she feels more confident in her own abilities than last year and now has the experience and practical knowledge required for the project process.
Daniels is also running unopposed but still found certain aspects of campaigning difficult.
“It’s still stressful in the sense that I really want students to know what I stand for,” the Weinberg junior said. “It’s still a really good experience to get my word and vision out there.”
For her campaign, Daniels posted flyers in some of the residential halls and colleges, visited many sorority houses, created a website and Facebook page and fostered relationships with many student groups.
“I started to reach out to student groups so that I can build that relationship with them throughout the year and not just in campaign season,” she said.
Daniels said she is looking forward to next year. Since she has already created an internal and external organizational structure, she can focus on implementation and advocacy, she said.
“I’ll be able to accomplish so much more in the next year … simply because of the strong foundations I’ve built in the last year with both students and student groups as well as administrators,” she said.
