{"id":9022,"date":"2026-04-14T04:13:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/tcu-senates-fall-semester-re-elections-see-most-incumbents-running-uncontested-the-tufts-daily\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T04:13:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:13:46","slug":"tcu-senates-fall-semester-re-elections-see-most-incumbents-running-uncontested-the-tufts-daily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/tcu-senates-fall-semester-re-elections-see-most-incumbents-running-uncontested-the-tufts-daily\/","title":{"rendered":"TCU Senate\u2019s fall semester re-elections see most incumbents running uncontested – The Tufts Daily"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he Tufts Community Union Senate held its reelections for the fall semester this past weekend, with<\/span> voting running from April 9 to April 11.<\/span> A total of 904 students, or 13.1% of the student body, voted in the election, similar to the fall semester, which saw a participation rate of 13%.<\/span>
Both t<\/span>he current Class of 2027 and Class of 2029 senators ran unopposed for reelection, while the Class of 2028 saw six incumbents and only two challengers.<\/span> There are seven seats per class.<\/span>
Each TCU Senate position has one available seat, all of which incumbents ran<\/span> uncontested<\/span> except for the Women\u2019s Senator and Africana Senator positions.<\/span>
Sophomore<\/span> Elysse Cumberland challenged current Africana Senator, sophomore Jesse Kitumba. Current<\/span> Women\u2019s Senator<\/span> Anahat Bawa, a sophomore, did not run for reelection; instead, Gracie Fenselthan, a current Class of 2028 senator and member of the Allocations Board, ran uncontested for the seat.<\/span> Lugin Afini<\/span>, a junior,<\/span> also ran for Southwest Asia North Africa Community Senator to fill a vacant seat.<\/span>
TCU Elections Commission Historian Theo Jacobsen, a sophomore,<\/span> told the Daily that this was not an uncommon occurrence in Senate reelections and that he does not see it as strictly negative.<\/span>
\u201cI\u2019d be happy to run a contested election if people want to apply and run against them; I want to encourage that,\u201d Jacobsen said. \u201cBut \u2026 I don\u2019t necessarily see there to be a need for that every election. If the best seven candidates are the people who are already doing the job, I’m okay with that.\u201d<\/span>
TCU Vice President Alexander Vang<\/span>, a senior who has spent three years as a member of the Senate, echoed Jacobson’s sentiment.<\/span>
\u201cI would say a spot or a seat being uncontested is pretty normal, but I also wouldn\u2019t say that it\u2019s a negative thing,\u201d<\/span> Vang said.<\/span>
Class of 2029 Senator Michael Williamson<\/span> suggested multiple reasons for the lack of competition, one being insufficient advertising by the Elections Commission.<\/span>
\u201cI think that [ECOM] did not do a great job advertising these elections,\u201d Williamson said. \u201cA lot of that is because it really is hard to gain traction and get students to go out of their way to click a link and to fill out a survey.\u201d<\/span>
Williamson said that much of the responsibility to promote Senate elections should fall on ECOM, rather than individual candidates.<\/span>
\u201cIt should not be put purely on the candidates to ensure that students are voting. \u2026 [This] is what the people in the Elections Commission are literally given stipends to do,\u201d<\/span> <\/span>he said.<\/span>
Vang added that ECOM may be considering changes in how elections are publicized.<\/span>
\u201cI think in terms of outreach, that definitely falls more on ECOM,\u201d Vang said. \u201c[They] may or may not have changes in store for trying to publicize<\/span> reelection<\/span>.\u201d<\/span>
Williamson also noted that a lack of competition may reduce campaign engagement among incumbents.<\/span>
\u201cI\u2019m not one to particularly back down to competition, so I would have enjoyed having the opportunity to run a more interesting campaign than what I did,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was a clear lack of motivation from almost everyone who was uncontested to go out of their way to do tabling events or even just smaller things<\/span>.\u201d<\/span>
Jacobsen expressed uncertainty as to why so many current senators ran uncontested, though he suggested that it stemmed from general satisfaction with the Senate\u2019s current work.<\/span>
\u201cI do think the Senate\u2019s done a great job,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople are seeing cool projects being done, they\u2019re seeing the Tufts Dining survey. That was a really interesting project.\u201d<\/span>
Vang also added that fall elections for the first-year class generally see more candidates than in later election cycles.<\/span>
\u201cWe tend to see in the [first-year] class, in the fall elections, a lot of people running just because that\u2019s what they\u2019ve done in high school \u2014 they want to continue being a student leader in this capacity,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then I think what happens is they just find their own interests if they\u2019re not elected, which is completely fine<\/span>.\u201d<\/span>
Vang also said that previous candidates get the chance during the year to see what the Senate<\/span> really<\/span> does and therefore have a better idea of whether the role fits their goals.<\/span>
\u201cThey\u2019ll see what senators actually do, [and say], \u2018oh, wait, that might not align with what I want to do, what I initially thought,\u2019\u201d<\/span> he said.<\/span>
\u201cThe senators that return know what they\u2019re interested in doing<\/span> on Senate<\/span>. \u2026 We<\/span> \u2026<\/span> continue<\/span> to get new people, new faces every single year, whether that be through community senator seats or class senator seats.\u201d<\/span>
Although low competition is not a new phenomenon for spring elections, Vang suggested ways to attract new candidates, such as more broadly advertising what the Senate does.<\/span>
\u201cWe can try to bolster what we do<\/span> on Senate<\/span> \u2014 which I feel like we\u2019ve done really great this year \u2014 but we also can\u2019t control who decides to run and who [doesn\u2019t].\u201d<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tufts Community Union Senate held its reelections for the fall semester this past weekend, with voting running from April 9 to April 11. A total of 904 students, or 13.1% of the student body, voted in the election, similar to the fall semester, which saw a participation rate of 13%.Both the current Class of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}