When incumbent ASUS executives Rico Garcia and Duncan Peterson burst into the house carrying two bottles of champagne, John Whittaker and Tom Jacobs knew they won.

The team for next year’s Arts and Science Undergraduate Society (ASUS) won with 65 per cent of the vote.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it,” said president-elect Whittaker, ArtSci ’14. His shirt was soaked in champagne.

“I’ve got an 8:30 class tomorrow but tonight I’m going to celebrate,” Whittaker said after learning of the result shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday.

“It feels great. I’m so excited,” said vice-president-elect Jacobs, ArtSci ’14. “We got more and more excited as the week went on.”

Voter turnout was about 22 per cent.

Around 25 supporters of the team cheered and offered their congratulations.

“They are two of the most driven people I know. They really do care about what they’re campaigning about,” Alex Dudelzak, Comm ’14, said.

Presidential candidate Musonda Yamfwa and vice-presidential candidate Kate Irwin were in the middle of a board game when they found out their contenders had won.

The phone rang to deliver the outcome.

“We didn’t get it,” Yamfwa, ArtSci ’13, told the room.

“We did have a feeling that it wasn’t in the cards for us because we did have such an out-there team,” Irwin, ArtSci ’13, said.

“We’ve both done a great job and I’m really happy that I was able to run with her [Kate],” Yamfwa said. “She was the greatest partner I ever could have.”

The pair planned to go to Alfie’s.

“We have to celebrate the fact that we did get some votes, and we were able to get on that ballot and recognize that people did pay attention to what we did,” Yamfwa said.

Both plan to continue with their respective extra-curricular activities. Yamfwa is currently the president of the Kingston Student Housing Co-operative and Irwin is co-chair of Accessibility Queen’s.

— With files from Terence Wong

For full story see Friday’s issue of the Journal.