The race for the University of North Carolina's next student body president took an odd turn in the week since one of its candidates, Emilio Vincente -- an openly gay man and admitted illegal immigrant --, attracted the spotlight of the national media on his way to winning the plurality with 41 percent of over 5,000 votes.

In the run-off election, casted yesterday with only Andrew Powell as his opponent, Vincente would have presumably needed to win just 10 percent of the remaining 59 percent to win. Yet, he couldn't even match his original 41 percent, drawing just 35 percent of all voters as Powell won by a wide margin, the Daily Caller reported.

What happened in the week since Vincente was the favorite to become UNC's next class president?

For one, the news happened. According to the College Fix, Vincente may have lost supporters wondering if he was a "media hound who sought publicity over pushing a strong platform."

As more people, including more UNC students, heard about Vincente (and tired of hearing about him, as noted in the College Fix), they seemed to pay closer attention to his platform, which, during a one-on-one "runoff" debate with Powell, was criticized for its lack of supporting statistics, according to the Carolina Review, a conservative press that openly backed Powell before yesterday's vote.

Even if his debate was judged by a somewhat biased source (Ben Smith, the editor of the Review, said he could not vote for Vincente because of his immigration status), Vincente's public fall-out with his platform writer, Ishmael Bishop, (occurring before the vote) was straight, unmitigated criticism from his own side.

Via Facebook, Bishop wrote "working very closely with Emilio's campaign, I know that he is NOT a transparent character. It is quite clear to me that ultimately Emilio lacks the competence and tact for representing a diverse Carolina for everyone."

Vincente responded (also over Facebook; somewhere Rick Pitino is shaking his head in disgust), but the damage was already done.