A decade ago, when candidates canvassed door-to-door at Harvard, pundits called it a move of desperation.

Now, DeBergalis, who registered hundreds of students, has proved that the student vote can count. But since it didn’t count enough to get him elected, the question is now whether someone else on the council will take up student issues.

“I think for a lot of people it’s not that easy to turn around and target a new group of people. I think the councillors represent certain interests….It’s not as if they can just turn on a dime now and appeal to students,” DeBergalis says.

Still, the almost-was councillor is optimistic.

“I do think you’ll see in 2005, everyone will pay attention to [students],” he says. “I don’t think the group will be dismissed as it once was.”

Koocher, however, notes that nearly half of DeBergalis’ support base could be gone by the time the 2005 Council race begins. The transient nature of Cambridge’s student population—nearly a quarter of which leaves the city each year—lends itself to creating an unstable constituency.

Koocher points out that if DeBergalis runs again two years from now, he would have to recreate his momentum. DeBergalis says he hasn’t made up his mind on whether he’ll run again.

“He’d have about the same chance, which is coming within a hair of actually being elected,” Koocher says. “I can’t guarantee he would win. He would also have a major organizing task, because at least half of the voters he got will no longer be in the city.”

Robert Winters, a longtime Cambridge political observer and editor of the Cambridge Civic Journal, agrees that the student population’s future as a political force is still up in the air.

“[Students] won’t have much impact unless people can sustain it,” Winters says. “They have to press this and continue this into future elections as well. This could easily be a passing phenomenon.”

But Winters says he thinks DeBergalis has “more staying power than most.”

He praises DeBergalis’s focus on registering student voters and attending public meetings to take a more active role.

“Other young candidates who came along have never really done that,” Winters says. “He showed far greater commitment than anybody I’ve seen in ages.”

Still, this year’s student turnout was a vast improvement from past elections.

Koocher says it is important not to underestimate the power of the student vote.