Leah Davis and Barron Mayfield have advanced to the runoff election in the race for Associated Student Body president after none of the three candidates gained a majority of the student body’s vote.
After 5,514 votes were counted, Mayfield had won 38.79% of the vote compared to Davis’s 32.08%.
Barron Mayfield received the most votes for the position of ASB president, at 38.79%. Photo by Christian Johnson.
Mayfield, a junior public policy leadership major from Lubbock, Texas, based his campaign on pushing for student representation on the state college board.
Mayfield said he plans to keep campaigning like he did leading up to Tuesday’s election, and he felt “energized” by the results.
“I’ve got a great team that’s putting in a ton of work, and we’re just going to keep on going,” he said.
Davis, a junior psychology major from Tupelo, has centered her presidential initiative around making ASB more diverse and addressing mental health issues on campus.
Davis said she feels incredible about advancing to the runoff, and she plans to campaign hard during the next two days leading up to the runoff election.
“We’re going to hone in on the platform and really hone in on why we care about students and what’s going on,” she said. “We’re going to hone in on why we’re the best candidate.”
If Davis wins the presidency, she will be the first black female student body president since Kimberly Dandridge was elected ASB president in 2012 and only the second black female ASB president in school history.
Leah Davis celebrates after finding out that she received 32.08% of the vote for ASB president and will run against Barron Mayfield in the runoff elections on Thursday. Photo by Katherine Butler.
Davis and Mayfield defeated Tom Fowlkes, who received 26.71% of the vote.
Fowlkes, a junior public policy leadership and accountancy major from Memphis, identified his ASB objective to engage with students more through Twitter polls and communicate with students more.
