When St. Thomas senior Andy Brown decided to run for the position of state representative this November, he expected to lose. So Tuesday’s results didn’t surprise Brown, who challenged incumbent and Democrat Erin Murphy for her seat representing District 64A.

Brown, a Republican, ended Election Day with 18.52 percent of the vote. His showing was better in St. Thomas’ Ward 4, Precinct 6, where he won 46.58 percent of the vote. Brown said that even though he expected to lose, he felt he needed to run.

“June 3 was the last day to file, and there were no Republican candidates, so some friends of mine gave me the push to run,” Brown said. “I just figured it would be a good experience, and I didn’t want to let my opponent go unopposed and neglect the Republicans in this district.”

Angie Hasek, chair of the Minnesota College Republicans, said Brown did the best he could, despite knowing it would be a challenge.

“Andy knew he was running in a tough district, but he still made sure to put up a fight,” Hasek said.

Because he made the decision to run at the last minute, Brown said he wasn’t as prepared as he would have liked. He needed to spend time building a website and figuring out the campaign finance software, something others had a head start on.

“Next time I’ll just – I’ll be a little bit more prepared,” Brown said. “There are just a lot of things that you don’t think about that go into running a campaign.”

Brown had help from others, including a high school friend who took his campaign photos and another who did design work. But despite the help, he said it was difficult to balance his life as a student and his campaign responsibilities.

“There was a fine line. I’d spend hours doing campaign work, and then I may or may not have forgotten minor homework assignments,” he said. “It definitely was a balancing act between campaign work and school work. I wanted teachers and professors to know that I was doing the work and putting effort into the campaign.”

Sophomore Maria Hill voted at home but said that if she voted at St. Thomas, she would have chosen Brown.

“I think it’s really neat that someone from St. Thomas would try to be involved in the political realm,” Hill said. “I think that really shows commitment, and it also shows what St. Thomas is trying to get its students to do is to go out and make the world a better place.”

Brown said he will be better prepared when he plans to run for office again in the future, and he expects it to be easier the second time around since he will not be a student.

“It’s just a matter of when,” he said. “But in the future, I need to organize all that first, have a plan and stick to it.”

Grace Pastoor can be reached at past6138@stthomas.edu.