Students overwhelmingly elected sophomore and Student Government Association outsider MJ Childs as their next president on Saturday after he campaigned on a platform demanding transparency from administrators about GW’s rising cost of attendance.
Childs, a creative writing and marketing major, captured 57.13 percent of the vote in the first round of ranked-choice voting, surpassing SGA Vice President Liz Stoddard’s 31.59 percent and junior Alfred Lewis Jr.’s 7.75 percent of the vote, according to the Joint Elections Commission’s unverified election results. Childs pledged to work with officials to make University communications more empathetic amid federal uncertainty from President Donald Trump’s administration, boost campus engagement through new student committees and combat cuts to student services as GW’s cost of attendance nears $100,000.
“I want to thank my amazing team,” Childs said. “You guys really pushed us throughout the whole entire way.”
Childs is the first SGA outsider to clinch the presidency since 2023 when students elected Residence Hall Association President Arielle Geismar. He is the first sophomore to win the presidency since 2024, when then-SGA Senator Ethan Fitzgerald narrowly won by 16 votes in the fourth round of ranked-choice voting.
SGA Sen. Aicha Sy (CCAS-U) prevailed in the vice presidential race, securing 1,377 votes, or 52.61 percent, in a much narrower contest, defeating her opponent SGA Sen. Cheydon Naleimaile-Evangelista (CCAS-U) by a 7.72 percent margin, according to the unverified results.
Sy, who spent the last year as chair of the SGA Senate’s Community, Advocacy and Inclusion Committee, ran on a platform of reforming the SGA’s internal structure and culture by creating a policy-writing office where non-SGA-affiliated students can bring issues they are facing on campus and be paired with a senator to translate them into policy. Sy said she also wants to implement ideas like a forum for first-year students, which would bring them together for roundtable discussions about issues they face at the University and rework the SGA’s town halls to be more interactive.
“I’m so starstruck, I’m so excited,” Sy said. “I really appreciate everyone who put in votes for me, all the people I’ve been able to meet along the way.”
Stoddard, who picked up 872 votes, said she was “disappointed” and declined to comment further.
Lewis, a transfer student who staged a bid for the presidency in his first semester at GW and won 214 votes, was absent from the results announcement. He congratulated Childs on his victory in a phone interview.
“He worked hard, he deserved it and it was great running alongside him as a competitor,” Lewis said. “I wish him the best for SGA.”
Naleimaile-Evangelista, who garnered 1,175 votes in the vice presidential race, congratulated Sy on her victory and added he looks forward to the “amazing things” she will do as vice president.
“I’m proud that I was able to run a clean campaign centered on ohana, centered on community,” Naleimaile-Evangelista said.
Voter turnout jumped this year to break a decade-long trend of turnout decline with 2,805 students casting ballots in this year’s elections compared to 2,510 last year — a just under 12 percent increase, but still roughly 10 percent of the total student body. This year’s turnout is the second highest in a seven-year span, with only the 2024 elections drawing more voters with 3,153 ballots cast.
Shadhvi Gowrisankar, Anya Srivastava, Beatriz Salim, Cole Bowie, Mathew Reis, Hugh Parker and Blaize Larson won the seven available undergraduate Columbian College of Arts & Sciences SGA Senate seats.
Madison Wyman won one of three CCAS graduate seats, with two others remaining vacant. Gavi Kanter and Jakub Gloc each won an undergraduate School of Business seat, with incumbent SGA Sen. Rodrigo Ganem (GWSB-U) — who was appointed to the body in February — winning the school’s third seat by write-in with three votes.
Satu Felix Pajkos and Zachary Brivio won Elliott School of International Affairs undergraduate senate seats, leaving one vacant.
Yusra Faheem and write-in candidate Mack Rusing picked up School of Engineering & Applied Science undergraduate seats and Oluwatoni Aina and Madison Wyman won a Milken Institute School of Public Health undergraduate seat and College of Professional Studies graduate seat, respectively. SGA Sen. Jivan Ramesh (Law-G) won reelection as the only GW Law candidate running for one of the school’s three seats in the SGA.
Twenty-four seats will remain vacant at the start of the SGA’s term — 19 of which are for graduate students — leaving more than half the Senate unfilled. Only three incumbents ran for reelection this year, a three-year low. Last year, thirteen seats remained vacant after the elections.
The SGA’s Governance and Nominations Committee is responsible for nominating students who apply to fill vacant seats throughout the year before they go before the full SGA Senate for a confirmation vote.
Amelia Nelson, Gianna Jakubowski, Jenna Lee, Lakshmi Dev and Ryan Saenz contributed reporting.
