After a record-breaking 2478 students voted, the student body elected Samantha Mims to be the new President of Student Government. She and her Vice Presidential nominee, Tajumaus Johnson, won against Rachel Bryant and Jesse Braughton by 189 votes.

Samantha Mims and Tajumaus Johnson were part of the UNF Red Party. Their party platform included student rewards program, advocating for increased Bright Futures funding, lobbying for a change in the excess credit hour surcharge, Greek housing feasibility consideration, more rentals from Eco Adventure, a farmers market day, a diversity and inclusion program, a bus stop at the library and increased campus lighting.

Rachel Bryant, the presidential candidate for the UNF United Party, gave a statement to Spinnaker shortly after hearing the results:

We also want to say that we are not done. No matter how the end of this election goes, once official results are in, we are going to keep fighting for every single one of our initiatives, because that is what United is about. We are not going to end with just one election. Would also like to say we are not done fighting. We are going to fight these results, we are going to continue to fight for students because we believe that one, we were an ethical campaign and we are going to make sure that it’s known and we are going to fight it in the courts, and we look forward to that.

Bryant is currently Chief of Staff, but that may end once Mims brings in her own cabinet. Bryant is not worried by this prospect, though, “Hopefully I’ll be president of student government because we are going to fight this and invalidate the election,” stated Bryant.

On top of presidential and vice presidential candidates, students were able to vote for 20 new senators. In the end, 10 senators from the Red Party and 10 senators from the United Party will join the new senate.

Those senators are:

Andres Castro – Red Party

Daniel Cox – United Party

Ryan Kader – Red Party

Abigail Walsh – United Party

Stephanie Fries – Red Party

Clarie Howard – United Party

Haley Muldron – Red Party

Nicholas Salter – United Party

Kelly Smith – Red Party

Jordan Bugg – United Party

Tori Somsak – Red Party

Neil Duncan – United Party

Elizabeth Lear – Red Party

Maria Bermudez – United Party

Nadim Issa – Red Party

Jenna DuPilka – United Party

Benjamin Myers – Red Party

Yannick Cali – United Party

Payton Turner – Red Party

Nina Lee – United Party

Students also voted whether or not they wanted the UNF Foundation to invest in fossil fuels. 44.5 percent of students opposed the referendum, 36.6 percent of students were neutral and 18.9 percent supported it.

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