Becky Slater runs for school president, and Paul complains that she's already campaigning before nominations are closed, and without an opponent. Kevin tells Paul that he can either be part of the solution or part of the problem, which leads Paul to sign Kevin up to run for class president. At first, Kevin does not want any part in it, until Becky tells him she can't wait to beat him. Eventually, they go into a campaign war against each other. On election day, one of Kevin's friends managed to get a copy of Becky's speech, and since Kevin goes on first, the school will think she stole his speech. Kevin considers the idea, while Paul doesn't approve. When Paul goes to the stand to introduce Kevin, he tells the school that Kevin is honest, which leads to Kevin dropping out of the race. In the end, Becky wins.
Includes examples of:
- All Elections Are Serious Business: Kevin and Becky both play dirty tricks on each other in their campaigns for school president, and Kevin considers reading her speech and passing it off as his.
- All Guys Want Cheerleaders: One of the strengths of Becky's campaign is that she not only has the endorsement of the cheerleaders, they're actively campaigning for her. Doug points to that as an unbeatable advantage.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Becky wins the election, though Kevin had dropped out of the race by then. And in this case, her status as the bad guy is really Gray-and-Grey Morality, as both played dirty tricks on each other.
- Bait-and-Switch: Kevin tells Paul if he has a problem with Becky campaigning when nobody else is running, he could run. However, Paul signs Kevin up for the campaign instead.
- Bastard Understudy: One of Becky’s friends, close enough to have a access to her debate speech, decides to betray her and give a copy of the speech to Kevin, in return for being appointed hall monitor by his administration.
- Bittersweet Ending: Kevin ends up dropping out of the race, and also gets detention from the experience (likely due to his friends accidentally dropping stink bombs that they had planned to drop during Becky's speech), and seeing the voting results, Kevin gets less than the write-in votes (Donald Duck even gets more votes than Kevin). But the narrator says that he didn't regret the experience and was happy they didn't have Kevin Arnold to mess around with anymore.
- Brick Joke: Early on, Kevin's friends joke that they'll vote for Donald Duck. When Kevin sees the election results, he sees that while he did get a few votes, Donald Duck got more votes than him.
- Dark Horse Victory: Not exactly a victory, but Paul, who did not run for class president, gets more write-in votes than Kevin (but less than Becky).
- The Dreaded: While previously she had been portrayed solely as Kevin's enemy, this episode establishes that Becky has quite a reputation with the rest of the school, as Randy Mitchell points out that nobody is stupid enough to run against her.
- Gilligan Cut: After Kevin finally agrees to run for president, Paul tells him to leave everything to him and that he'll get the best minds in the school behind him. Cut to Randy, Doug and Tommy watching The Three Stooges on TV and looking even dumber than them.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Becky unwittingly makes things harder for herself twice in the episode.
- Kevin never even wanted to run for president and was all set to quit until Becky confronts him at the pizzeria and tells him how much she is looking forward to crushing him in the election (and in front of Winnie, who was impressed that Kevin was running).
- Kevin's campaign was effectively dead in the water until Becky decided to come by his table to gloat and accidentally got one of Kevin's campaign posters stuck to her butt. This kickstarted the escalating negative campaign prank war that breathed new life to Kevin's campaign.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: The audience is supposed to side with Kevin because he is the underdog protagonist and Becky is unpleasant to him on a personal level, despite the fact that he doesn't even want the job and would be a terrible president. There's also the fact that the organizational skills Becky displays in her campaign show she is actually the best person for the job.
- Shop Class: Kevin is in shop class when he hears the announcement that he will be running for class president.
- Revenge Before Reason: Kevin is fully aware that realistically he doesn't stand a chance to beat Becky and never even wanted the job to begin with. However, he stays in the race purely out of desire to get back at her.
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Becky comes by Kevin's table in the cafeteria and offers to give him some pity votes, fully expecting to beat him.
- Villainy-Free Villain: Becky despises Kevin, as usual, but this is the only time the two are at odds against each other, as the two are competing for a big class title. However, while she smugly does tell Kevin she looks forward to defeating him, and the two do pull dirty tricks on each other, she does not act truly villainous, with Kevin being worse by considering stealing her speech and passing it off as his own.
- What You Are in the Dark: Kevin has a chance to destroy Becky in the debate and getting away with it. But he ultimately decides to take the high ground.
