When the chair of the Joint Elections Committee announced that junior Lamar Thorpe would be the next Student Association president, Thorpe’s mother was just as excited, if not more so, than he was.

“I’m just so ecstatic,” Dorita Thorpe said. “It made it all worth the trip, worth it all.”

Members of Thorpe’s biological family made the trip to D.C. from their native city, Pittsburgh. The family was reunited three years ago after Thorpe had spent the first 20 years of his life growing up with his adopted family.

“What a great birthday present – thank you GW,” said Thorpe, who turned 25 Thursday.

Thorpe beat opponent Morgan Corr, also a junior, by 186 votes for the SA presidency. Junior Josh Lasky beat sophomore Angela Chang by 439 votes and will be the SA’s executive vice president next year.

Junior Liz Fox, chair of the JEC, made the announcement at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday in the Marvin Center, after two days of a runoff campaign and a week after the general election.

While last week’s general election recorded a three-year voter turnout high of 3,183 students, this week’s runoff election saw only 1,818 students vote. Runoffs typically attract fewer voters than the general election.

Corr garnered 816 votes in the runoff and said he would be involved next year in the SA, even though he did not win an official position.

“We ran the best we could,” said Corr, the current EVP who was the top vote-getter in last week’s general election with 904. “I could not be happier of the team we put together.”

Lasky, who teamed up with Thorpe, after last week’s general election, received 1,128 votes in the runoff compared to his 914 votes in last week’s general election.

“I am looking at all of the people around me, and their smiles light me up,” Lasky said. “The team I worked for made the difference.”

Chang, who finished in second place last week with 844 votes, garnered 689 votes in the runoff. She said the Real GW team, which won 15 of the 18 seats it vied for in last week’s SA and Marvin Center Governing Board elections, will be a significant force in next year’s Senate.

“I believe anything good that comes out of the Senate next year will be from Real GW,” said senior Amrita Bagaria, who was the Real GW slate’s campaign manager.

The newly elected SA representatives from the past two weeks will assume their positions later this month in a swearing-in ceremony. The first meeting for the senators-elect will take place in mid-April.

-Brandon Butler contributed to this report.