At Wednesday night's senate meeting, Vice President Lee Goble announced that 39 candidates have filed for the upcoming year's Student Government offices. Of those, five will run for student body president, three for vice president and two for treasurer.
According to Goble, the number of candidates is the lowest in a decade, excluding 2014, when there were also 39 candidates. This decline is especially surprising since USC enrollment has been increasing steadily in the past decade. As there are only 29 senatorial candidates competing for 50 seats, Goble reminded current senators that their seats are not guaranteed, given the potential for write-in votes. "If you're going to run, you need to run. Get your name out there," Goble said. "Encourage people to run."
As far as campaigning goes, Goble was frank. "It is active, and most of the time it's aggressive," he said.
Candidates will be officially announced at the beginning of next week and, after Tuesday evening's mandatory candidate meeting, can begin launching a "soft campaign" — which basically means touting your slogan on anything intangible, excluding paper items.