Hope Montoya and Owen Salinas will be the next president and vice president of the Associated Students at the University of New Mexico, according to unofficial results from the ASUNM Elections Commission.
Montoya and Salinas ran on a platform of expanding advocacy for students. Their major policy plans are “Lobo Print+,” to give students a credit for printing on campus, and continuing an effort to partner with ride share apps Lyft and Uber to get discounts for UNM students.
This Spring election saw 1,408 students cast their ballots in an election that had three candidates for ASUNM president and vice president and 11 candidates for senate. Montoya won with 581 votes and Salinas with 567.
Montoya served as the ASUNM vice president and Salinas as ASUNM President Pro-Tempore.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, elections held by ASUNM have seen a distinct drop in turnout compared to pre-COVID levels.
This election saw the highest turnout since the Spring semester of 2019, which had 1,476 votes cast.
Using data from the ASUNM Elections Commission and the Daily Lobo’s archive, the Daily Lobo assembled the last 12 years of ASUNM election results — aside from Fall 2022, as results are not available for that semester.
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The results from this year show a 82% increase over last semester's election, a 4% increase compared to the last ASUNM presidential election and a 357% increase compared to the lowest turnout point, in Fall 2023.
This election cycle, approximately 8% of undergraduate students voted in the ASUNM election, an increase compared to the 4% of students in Fall 2025. Enrollment data for Spring 2021 could not be found.
Jaden McKelvey-Francis is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on X @jadenmckelvey
