Late Tuesday night, Mikaela Bautista and Emma Fallon were announced as president-elect and vice president-elect of the Undergraduate Student Government for the 2025-26 academic year.
The winning candidates watched the results live, and shortly after the USG meeting ended, Annenberg Media spoke with them and other stakeholders.
“I’m so excited and so grateful to be given this position, and I’m just really excited to get to work next year,” said Bautista, a junior majoring in business administration.
Looking ahead, Bautista is anticipating building her cabinet alongside Fallon, which she said will “set the tone for how next year will be.”
“I think that with the new administration, USG is gonna feel more like a home,” said Laila Smith, a junior majoring in psychology and co-executive director of the speakers committee at USG. “I feel like USG is very divided right now, and there’s cliques of people, but I think that with this new administration, it’ll become more of a community.”
The election announcement also confirmed the 12 new members of the senate. Among them was senator-elect Dakota Driemeyer, who ran on a platform of uplifting conservative voices who he says have been “maligned” on campus. As senator-elect, Driemeyer says his first step will be to recuse his stipend as a member of the senate, a campaign promise he ran on.
Driemeyer also spoke on the disqualification of senatorial candidate Mason Yonover, who was deemed ineligible for election after using “excessively crude” language throughout his campaign. Driemeyer originally filed the complaint against Yonover alongside judicial council member Ryan Tung.
“We are held to [the] USG code of ethics, and he did not hold that. He used vulgarity, he did a verbal tirade against myself in a public forum. So USG… made the right decision,” Driemeyer said.
In response, Yonover later told Annenberg Media that “USG doesn’t actually do anything, and nobody gives a shit about USG.”
Reflecting on the election overall, USG Chief Justice Susanna Andryan, a senior majoring in legal studies as well as philosophy, politics and law, expressed concern about voter turnout, which was down 15% from last year. She thought that clearer signs indicating both the opportunity to vote and the incentives — vouchers for free food at USG voting stations — would help with turnout.
Driemeyer also looked back on a tumultuous 2024-25 academic year for USG that saw both the president and the speaker of the senate resign and look forward to a brighter future.
“[We] want to move all past that and truly deliver results for them,” Driemeyer said.
Bautista ended by commending the hard work of all who ran for USG president, vice president and senate during this election cycle.
“I really congratulate everyone on persevering throughout this entire campaign season,” Bautista said. “Emma and I are so proud, and really admire everything that each candidate did for the past two months.”