Jaleah Taylor will serve as the 2024-25 student body president, the UNC Board of Elections announced at around 1:11 a.m. on Thursday morning.
Taylor received 65.51 percent of the overall election vote, while the opposing certified candidate Laura Saavedra Forero received 32.42 percent. Write-in candidates received 2.07 percent.
She said she was excited to receive a call from acting chair and president of the UNC BOE Sophie van Duin confirming her election as SBP early Thursday morning.
"I'm surrounded by some of the best people in the world that helped us get to this moment," she said. "I am feeling overwhelmed but really grateful that the student body has trusted me with leading this university."
As a candidate for SBP, Taylor's campaign slogan was "Our Home, Our Future, Our Carolina." Her platform aimed to address food insecurity on campus, increasing accessibility, prioritizing student mental health and create the framework for a "greener" UNC. She is a co-founder and president of the Black Pre-Law Student Association at UNC and will continue to act as the current undergraduate student body secretary until her inauguration in April.
Taylor said that her favorite part of her campaign was creating the launch video announcing her candidacy. She said that after meeting with so many different student organizations and putting together her policy platform, she loved watching everything come together.
Now, as president-elect, Taylor said she is most excited to do one thing: "advocate."
"I know throughout this campaign journey, I've met with so many different organizations, but to continue that, I'm really super excited to meet with groups that a lot of lot of times don't normally get met with. I'm just super excited to advocate," she said.
Voting ended at midnight on Feb. 14. Out of 31,778 eligible student voters, the UNC BOE received a total of 2,224 votes for student body president: 1,457 for Taylor, 721 for Saavedra Forero and 46 for other write-in candidates.
