The Vanderbilt Student Government presidential campaign ended for one team Tuesday night as Reid Simon and Randall Norman lost the primary with 20 percent of the vote.

Simon said he believes his loss reflects "a lack of effort" on his part.

"After seeing how political people were really willing to get with the politics they play, it made me second guess whether I really wanted to be a part of VSG," he said.

Joseph Williams and Wyatt Smith won the primary with half the student vote, while Jared Anderson and Courtney Holliday gained 29 percent.

Polls were open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for students to vote online or at two locations on campus for their top two choices among the three. A third of the student body turned out to vote.

Simon said he would endorse Anderson and Holliday for president because "they are leaders, not characters."

Anderson said he was "excited for the real campaign to begin" this week between the two tickets.

"I think people are just now starting to pay attention," he said. "I feel like it's anybody's race at this point."

Williams agreed, saying, "The game starts over next week."

And Smith cautioned people not to read too much into their win.

"The fact is the numbers are skewed because you can vote for two tickets, and because of that, you can't look at any kind of disparity between the numbers and generalize anything out of that," he said.

Williams said the win only "inspires (him) to work harder," and Holliday echoed that sentiment, saying she and Anderson would continue with a vigorous campaign.

"We're really excited to be moving on to another week of campaigning, really excited about meeting more students, talking to more voters," she said. "We're excited to keep doing what we're doing, getting more ideas from students and listening to what they want us to do."

— Glenna DeRoy can be reached at glenna.h.deroy@vanderbilt.edu