Groups Decide UC Race

Two weeks ago, Undergraduate Council Vice President Eric N. Hysen ’11 noted the relatively equal footing of the two leading tickets in this year’s elections.

Both presidential candidates and their running mates had served time on the UC’s 12-person executive board, both ran on social life as a key issue, and both counted their experience as a key asset.

But in 11 days of campaigning and elections, the winning ticket of Senan Ebrahim ’12 and running mate Bonnie Cao ’12 opened up a noticable gap on challengers Matthew S. Coe-Odess ’12 and Tengbo Li ’12, setting the pace in endorsements by student groups and support from fellow UC representatives.

While Coe-Odess and Li emphasized their ticket’s attractiveness to individual students from a wide variety of backgrounds, Ebrahim and Cao were able to garner 24 student group endorsements, compared to only six for their opponents.

In an interview with The Crimson earlier this week, Cao identified the student group endorsements as particularly crucial in this year’s race, which centered on finding options for increasing and facilitating social options. Both campaigns boasted planks intended to help groups gain access to alternative spaces and funding for large events.

Ebrahim and Cao campaign insiders pointed to the ticket’s realistic platform, many elements of which had already been pursued by the pair during their time on the Council, as a reason for its endorsement success.

Harvard College Democrats President Jason Q. Berkenfeld ’11 agreed, saying that the Ebrahim-Cao ticket’s focus on feasible solutions to the problems of social space and funding for student groups won it the group’s endorsement.

“Social space is something that student groups have been dealing with for years. This isn’t the first campaign in which all candidates have addressed it,” said Ashlee N. Adams ’12, president of the Black Students Association, which endorsed Ebrahim-Cao. “A lot of the tickets addressed social space and TFs in sections. Senan and Bonnie seemed to have a plan as to how they were actually going to achieve those goals.”

While senior leaders on the Council’s Executive Board stayed publicly neutral, Ebrahim and Cao won the support of eight of 12 freshman representatives, giving them increased access and exposure to voters in the Yard. Explaining why he chose to support the Ebrahim-Cao ticket, Oak Yard representative William F. Poff-Webster ’14 pointed to the pair’s prominent accomplishments on the Council over the past months.

In contrast, Coe-Odess and Li emphasized their outreach to students as individuals, which included knocking on 600 doors while forming their platform.

“I think the best thing was that Matt and Tengbo spent a lot of time just talking to students—door knocking, just walking around,” said Beñat A. Idoyaga ’12, the pair’s campaign manager.

Nevertheless, the inability to tap the larger networks represented by student groups and Yard constituencies may have slowed the ticket’s momentum. Coe-Odess said that his campaign may have appealed to a different demographic of students than those who typically turn out in UC election campaigns.

Coe said yesterday that he believed he had received the votes of “99 percent of athletes, 99 percent of final club members” and that the ticket had in fact fielded ideas that were advantageous for other student demographics, including freshmen, but that ultimately the pair lacked connections to the networks of students who perennially turn out for UC elections.

“[Senan and Bonnie’s] crowd is the kind of people who are generally interested in this stuff and care about this,” Coe-Odess added. “My crowd is indifferent, but they voted for me.”

—Staff writer Stephanie B. Garlock can be reached at sgarlock@college.harvard.edu.