Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield and pastor Solomon Kinloch Jr. have advanced to the general election from the city’s mayoral primary in a crowded field to succeed outgoing Mayor Mike Duggan, Decision Desk HQ projected early Wednesday.
Duggan, a registered Democrat, chose not to run for reelection to a fourth term in office to instead pursue an independent campaign for governor next year, leaving a wide-open race to replace him. The primary was a blanket contest in which all candidates compete on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation, with the top two performers facing off head-to-head in the general election in November.
Despite the race being formally nonpartisan, a Democrat was almost certain to win in the heavily Democratic-leaning city that hasn’t elected a Republican in decades.
Sheffield and Kinloch, both Democrats, came out on top of a field of nine candidates in total, which included former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, former Detroit City Council President Saunteel Jenkins and City Council member Fred Durhal III. Craig is the only candidate who ran as a Republican, after unsuccessful bids for the GOP nomination for governor in 2022 and Senate in 2024.
Sheffield has been the early favorite to win the election with the limited polling of the race showing her ahead of the rest of the pack. She also put up strong fundraising numbers with more than $800,000 raised this year.
If elected, she would become Detroit’s first female mayor.
She notched key endorsements from the Detroit Free Press’s editorial board and EMILYs List.
But the contest for second place seemed hotly contested ahead of the primary with multiple candidates having a chance.
The candidates broadly agreed about the comeback that Detroit has seen during Duggan’s tenure. Duggan, who has served since 2014, came into office in the aftermath of the city declaring bankruptcy, but the city has seen a resurgence with balanced budgets, declining crime rates and a growing population.
Sheffield has emphasized her experience leading the City Council and working with Duggan. But one issue has been about the best way to continue the city’s prosperity and spread it to more areas of the city that haven’t felt the effects as much.
Kinloch is the senior pastor at Triumph Church, a megachurch in Detroit. The church has grown to 40,000 members and seven locations, the Detroit Free Press reported.
His campaign has raised more than $500,000, the second-most of the candidates in the race, according to DDHQ. Jenkins followed closely behind in the fundraising race with $430,000 raised.
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