Updated: April 21, 2025, at 4:50 p.m.
The message is simple, plastered on Student Government Association campaign posters and stickers across campus: “Vote Rat.”
Each spring semester, while the variegated tulips bloom in GW’s green spaces, multicolored SGA election posters crop up around campus. Each new election cycle boasts its own range of newcomers and familiar faces running for a seat in the governing body, and since 2023, one fuzzy, aspiring politico has become a recurring candidate.
The GW Rat garnered a total of 105 write-in votes from students in last week’s SGA election. Students’ votes placed the GW Rat fourth and third in the presidential and vice presidential races, respectively. The rodent even won a GW School of Business undergraduate senate seat with 13 write-in votes, coming in 11 votes ahead of Jakub Gloc, whom the Joint Elections Commission ceded the seat to because they could not verify the Rat’s identity. Gloc did not immediately return a request for comment.
The votes followed an online and on-campus campaign of students pasting posters around Foggy Bottom and reposting “Vote Rat” graphics on Instagram, including a red-and-blue color-blocked nod to former President Barack Obama’s “Hope” poster from his 2008 campaign.
The student behind the Rat, who requested to remain anonymous to maintain the mystery surrounding the campaign, said they think of the GW Rat’s campaign as a “little anti-establishment.” They said they feel the SGA can be doing more to help students, like being an “advocacy council” for students to administrators rather than “role playing” government in a three-branch system.
But ultimately, the student said, writing in GW Rat can mean “anything for anyone,” since the campaign taps into both the humorous aspect of electing a rat into office and more serious discontent with the SGA from students.
“Half the time, it’s people just don’t know anything about the candidates,” the student said. “The other half of the time, it’s like, people don’t like the candidates. So realistically, that’s it, and obviously it’s funny, how often does a write-in candidate win an election? People do it for their own reasons.”
In a March 24 joint Instagram post from Gw.propaganda and Gwurats urging students to “Vote Rat,” one student commented “#unitedwerat,” and in an April 12 post announcing the GW Rat’s GWSB senate seat win, students commented “RECOUNT #STOPTHESTEAL” and “THEY’RE TRYING TO STEAL THE SEAT FROM RAT!!!” in response to the JEC ceding the seat.
The student said they were “sick” of the “self conceited” nature they saw from members of the governing body, noting that the representatives often “don’t actually care a lot” about SGA initiatives and are there for their “own purpose.”
“I’d heard way too many stories,” the student said. “I’d seen the toxicity of SGA before, and so I was just like, it was dumb, there was the club funding drama as well, I think I kind of spurred that by being a bit propagandizing about the topic.”
The summer before the student started their first year at GW in 2022, the SGA’s executive cabinet voted to remove then-SGA President Christian Zidouemba, citing a lack of confidence in his leadership and his alleged mishandling of the SGA’s response to calls for officials to fire Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Zidouemba maintained the office when two cabinet members withdrew their votes, but at least seven members of the executive branch left the SGA that same week.
In fall 2022, then SGA Finance Committee Chair Ian Ching (ESIA-U) resigned from the governing body after SGA leaders issued a report accusing Ching of negligence and preferential treatment of student organizations his friends were in while he served as chair. The same semester, initial budget allocations for student organizations hit a record low with most student organizations only receiving between 2 and 10 percent of the funds they requested, according to an ad-hoc member of the allocations committee.
The student said this semester, they transitioned from taping posters up to wheatpasting them to prevent them being torn down, which they said has happened occasionally in the past. They added that while wheatpasting posters this semester, someone approached them and asked what Vote Rat means, stirring them to contemplate why they run the campaign every spring.
“I’m not starting a movement or anything,” the student said. “I’m here for fun, and I think GW doesn’t have a lot of culture when it comes to fun.”
The student, a junior graduating early this semester, also runs Gw.propaganda, an Instagram account that posts content about student life and campus culture. They said they started the Gw.propaganda account and campaign in spring 2023 after serving as a clerk in the SGA that academic year.
“I had just gotten a knack for making these fun little propaganda things, and I realized, ‘Oh, you know what’s so propaganda? A campaign,’” the student said.
As the 2024 SGA elections neared, the student said they wanted to “ramp up” the GW Rat’s campaign and expand efforts to get students to write in the GW Rat due to the growing number of concerns they fielded from friends about “toxicity” and “misogyny” within the SGA.
The student said even though they haven’t thought deeply about the GW Rat’s plans for next year’s elections, their “main idea” is to go “bigger” and possibly reveal their individual identity after.
“I don’t want to be a part of the SGA, that’s been out of my mind since freshman year,” the student said. “I think it would just be a signal to the people who are running student government that something needs to change. If people are so inclined to vote Rat rather than other candidates, that speaks more on them.”
JEC Chair Michael Ubis said after he presented a powerpoint announcing the election results on April 12, which featured the GW Rat in races where it had received a plurality of write-in votes, University President Ellen Granberg approached him and asked about the meaning behind the GW Rat’s electoral feature.
“She said ‘What is this Rat about? Is it an acronym for something? Is it Representing All of us Together? Or is it in reference to a rat in Science and Engineering Hall or something?'” Ubis said. “And I was like, ‘Well, it’s kind of a movement, it’s more of a meme candidate.’ She laughed at that.”
He said votes for the Rat showed “disillusionment” between the SGA and the student body, but the Rat campaign has served as a way for students to get involved with the election.
“There’s not always a candidate for everyone on the ballot,” Ubis said. “And if the way that somebody wants to get engaged is writing in Rat, I think that’s great.”
A representative from Gwurats, who did not identify themselves, said Gw.propaganda has been the main organizer of the GW Rat campaign and a “staunch” advocate of rats that they are “proud” to be affiliated with. They said the campaign was a joint venture “between all rats” behind the Gwurats account and is their “pet project.”
“Down with the SGA! Rat Reigns Supreme!” the representative said in a message.
Cristina Stassis contributed reporting.
This post was updated to clarify the following:
This post was update to clarify that in spring 2023 an anonymous student started Gw.propaganda, which posts about the GW Rat but is separate from Gwurats, which started in 2021.
