Five senators and three referendums attended forums at the first night of the Associated Students of the University of California, Irvine (ASUCI) 2026 election debates.
The senatorial candidates who took part in the At-Large Senator debate are second-year chemical engineering and biological sciences student Nithila Murugesan, third-year philosophy and history student Jose Ramos and first-year political science major Devika Vithalani. The International Senatorial candidates are second-year psychological sciences and quantitative economics student Yumu Huo and first-year business information management major Renee Zhou.
“I’m running for reelection to continue the work I’ve already started in ASUCI to make it more transparent, accessible and student-focused,” Murugesan said during the forum. “Through my time in [the] senate I have seen how impactful student voices can be.”
Senatorial candidates explained what they thought the role of a senator should be during the debate.
“An underlying theme which we do not see is outreach,” Ramos said. “As some of the candidates have mentioned here, there are tons of resources at UCI that are great for students, but not many students know about them. So I have done that this year, in my capacity as Humanities Senator.”
Candidates for the senate also shared their inspiration for running for the senate during the debate.
“Ever since I was in second grade I’ve had one goal and that’s to work in the government and to pursue a career in law,” Vithalani said. “Through all of middle school, elementary, high school I’ve held on to that goal and I pursued that throughout high school, where I became [a] student board member.”
Senatorial candidates also shared why they were uniquely qualified for the senate position in which they were running for.
“I think I deserve to be an International Senator because I already engage with a lot of students from different backgrounds,” Huo said. “Through my work as a previous intern, I’m familiar with the process such as how to turn an opinion into a real legislation and moreover I am familiar with the International Center.”
Candidates were also asked how they would work to engage more students with the ASUCI Senate.
“ASUCI has so much to offer but students don’t know how to get started,” Zhou said. “I think that the first step is to connect with [the] International Center (IC) because more international students recognize the IC department more.”
Following the senatorial forum, three of the referendums on the 2026 ASUCI ballot held forums. No student or audience questions were permitted at these forums, which was a change from the 2025 forums that permitted audience questions.
The Support Student-Run Newspaper Student Fee Referendum forum was held first.
“We are basically asking for $2 per student, per quarter in order to help us mainly support a bi-weekly print schedule and to help support our staff as well as equipment,” referendum coordinator Skylar Paxton said.
The Undergraduate Basic Needs Student Fee Referendum forum was held second.
“We are a student-led initiative to reinstate a new quarterly fee that is going into the UCI Basic Needs Center, which will otherwise expire at the end of this quarter,” referendum coordinator Anber Tahmas said. “The Basic Needs Center at UCI, they provide crucial support services to students which allow them to thrive in higher education.”
The third and final forum of the night was the UCI DREAM Center Student Fee Referendum forum.
“This is a $6 per quarter fee put in to help support the DREAM Center and DREAM Center services. More specifically, it’s really to help partially fund the DREAM Project fellowship,” referendum coordinator Alan Peralta said. “The DREAM Project fellowship is a year-long fellowship that gives $7,200 to fellows to help them support their professional development here at UCI.”
Students can visit elections.uci.edu for more information about candidates’ campaigns and referendums. Voting has begun and will close April 17 at 5 p.m.
Editor’s Note: Skylar Paxton is the 2025-2026 Editor in Chief of New University.
Jack Fedor is the 2025-2026 Sports Editor. He can be reached at jfedor@uci.edu.
Edited by Geneses Navarro.
