Andrew Powell wins student body president after 7,441 students vote

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article mischaracterized this year’s vote total in the student body president race as the greatest in UNC’s history — this was inaccurate. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

Shock and excitement were two of the first emotions Andrew Powell said he felt after defeating Emilio Vicente in a record-breaking runoff election.

“I have so much respect for Emilio, for his team. They ran an amazing campaign, and he was an incredible candidate,” Powell said.

“I really just feel so fortunate to have won this race.”

After 7,441 votes, UNC students elected Powell to be the next student body president in Tuesday’s election.

Powell won 63 percent of the vote — the greatest of any winner in at least nine years — defeating Vicente by 27 percentage points.

“I appreciate all of the support I’ve gotten,” Vicente said.

There was a large increase in voter turnout in the runoff compared to the general election, with almost 2,000 more students voting.

Powell received 4,760 votes and Vicente got 2,681 votes in the runoff election.

Powell said he was shocked but excited by the outcome.

He said he plans to meet with current student body president Christy Lambden soon to discuss his new role.

“Christy said he was going to sit down with me (Wednesday) and begin delegating some of the work so I can learn the ropes before I take office and hit the ground running,” Powell said. “So I’m excited to begin working with him.”

Powell will fully take over Lambden’s position in April.

With an emphasis on education reform, Powell said he will start implementing his platform as soon as possible.

“We’ve got emails ready to go to big foundations for the blended learning initiative and have already begun some of those conversations and can’t wait to take them to the next level,” he said.

The junior from Tennessee said he is open to the possibility of including the losing candidates into his administration in the coming year.

“All three of them I have tremendous respect for and hope that they will be interested in student government next year,” he said.

Vicente said he would be willing to work with Powell in the future.

“I’m definitely open to the idea, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Vicente, who led all candidates in the general election last week, was not the first to lose a runoff after leading in a general election. Current Student Body President Christy Lambden defeated Will Lindsey last year after finishing second the week before.

Vicente led the election last week with about 40 percent of the vote but failed to earn an outright majority, forcing a runoff.

Before running for student government, Vicente was a leading advocate for in-state tuition for students without documentation in North Carolina. He said he will still work to advocate for students.

“I’m going to continue doing what I’ve always done,” Vicente said. “I’m looking forward.”

Vicente said in the past, he wouldn’t have expected to even be in a race for student body president.

“This has been an amazing experience that I never would have thought I could have done a long time ago,” he said.

Powell received the most endorsements from student organizations out of the four original candidates, and both former candidates Winston Howes and Nikita Shamdasani voiced their support for him in the past week.

“It so happened that Andrew was the most willing to integrate the ideas and thought about that over my endorsement,” Shamdasani said. “… His platform itself I thought was more substantial.”

UNC Young Democrats President Wilson Parker also asked students to vote for Powell Tuesday in a video with the president of UNC’s College Republicans, though his organization endorsed Vicente.

One of Vicente’s original platform writers, Ishmael Bishop, expressed his support for Powell in a Facebook post Monday, claiming that Vicente had been more focused on national attention than issues facing UNC students.

But out of all the endorsements and support, Powell said he thinks his grandma will be the most proud.

“She follows a lot of stuff that I do, and she sends me encouraging texts from time to time,” he said.

“I know that she’s always thinking about me and praying for me.”

Staff writer Carolyn Ebeling contributed reporting.

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