Rep. Alex Brown ‘26 emerged the victor in the 2024 Student Government presidential election, defeating Vice President Yuko Tanaka ‘26, according to results obtained by The Lafayette on Wednesday.
The candidates for vice president, communications officer and inclusivity officer ran unopposed. Inclusivity Officer Sasha Carter ‘27 will become vice president, Parliamentarian Ava Gallia ‘26 is communications officer-elect and Rep. Luna Garces ‘27 will be inclusivity officer.
There were no candidates for treasurer or parliamentarian.
“I woke up, and I saw the email about the results, and I was like, ‘Alright, great, now it’s time to get to work,’” Brown said.
Tanaka did not respond to requests for comment.
Turnout was double that of the last competitive election, with 727 students — 26% of the student body — casting ballots, according to Student Government.
Brown received 56.4% of the vote to Tanaka’s 39.4%. In all three uncontested races, at least 24% of voting students opted to abstain or leave their ballots blank rather than vote for the candidates, with Gallia receiving the fewest votes of the three at 69.74%.
Brown will be inheriting a governing body that has struggled with high turnover and low engagement over the past year, both of which he pledged to address as president. He said that his first order of business will be to fill the executive officer positions being vacated on Jan. 1 and to select representatives to complete the general body. As of Thursday, Student Government has not publicized applications for the general body.
The president-elect said that he was ready to make “sure that Student Government can be on track to fight for the objectives that students want done.” Some of his campaign pledges included expanding composting in fraternity houses and bringing new equipment to the Kirby Sports Center gym.
Breaking with tradition, Student Government did not publicize election results through its own channels, which it usually does within 24 hours of polls closing. It advertised the election through a banner in Farinon College Center, a tabling event on Friday and an Instagram post uploaded 15 hours before polls closed.
“I think we definitely need to do a better job promoting it next year and making the election cycle a little bit longer,” said Brown, who focused much of his campaign on fixing Student Government’s communications issues.
“He’s a really good guy, he was my teammate for a couple years, so I got to know him pretty well,” said Chris Rafferty ’26, who voted for Brown and fenced with him at Lafayette while he was on the team. “I trust his leadership skills.”
Dyonis Diaz ’28, who was part of his high school’s student government, said that he looked for candidates that said they would “make change for Lafayette in a positive way.”
“It was very appealing when they would mention specific things that they would do, rather than just saying ‘I want to foster a positive community,'” Diaz said of the candidates. He declined to comment on who he voted for.
All of the elected officers will assume their positions on Jan. 1.
Emma Li ’27 and Andreas Pelekis ’26 contributed reporting.
