Detroit has a number of famous representatives. Representatives John Dingell, labor leader Patrick McNamara, and Congressmember John Conyers.
Charles Diggs Jr. doesn’t often make these lists. But should he? The first Black congressmember from Michigan, he worked with Martin Luther King, Jr, helped pass the Voting Rights Act, advocated for the end of apartheid in South Africa, and changed America’s foreign policy stances toward many nations in Africa.
Why don’t more people know about him?
It’s partly because the congressmember ended his professional career in disgrace, having to retire because of a payroll kickback scheme he orchestrated.
But what should we remember about this representative who built cross-ideological and cross-political coalitions to achieve civil rights for more people in America and around the world?
Marion Orr is a professor of political science at Brown University. He spoke with Producer Sam Corey about his new book, “House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr.”
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Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall makes his MichMash debut this week to share his take on recent events involving the Michigan legislature. In this episode, he joins hosts Cheyna Roth and Zach Gorchow to talk about funding, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the state budget, Republican candidates for governor and more.
Speaker Hall says his H.E.A.T. plan (short for the Hall Ethics, Accountability and Transparency plan) aims to bring more transparency to spending in the legislature. He says that people need to know where money from the state budget is going.
“Let’s get public documents a long time in advance that tells us what is the public purpose, what is the project, so we can look into these ‘pork’ spending projects and say which ones are good and which ones are bad,” Hall said.
Republican candidates for governor
Hall also spoke about the current candidates for governor. He said that there were a lot of strong republican contenders, but he also complimented independent candidate Mike Duggan.
“Mike Duggan and I get along very well,” Hall said. “I’ve done many deals with him. The Public Safety Trust fund… We have a great relationship. But he’s more of a democrat than a republican.”
The Michigan gubernatorial elections will be held on Nov. 3, 2026.
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Shutting down the federal government was a matter of principle for U.S. Senate Democrats back in October.
Tens of thousands of federal workers were furloughed. Air traffic controllers were forced to work without pay. The Trump Administration fought in court to reduce SNAP food assistance.
Tax credits tied to plans through the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, were set to expire, and without them premiums were set to skyrocket. That was unacceptable to most Democrats, who wanted to leverage the shutdown to extend healthcare subsidies.
This week, seven Democrats and one independent changed their strategy and voted to end the shutdown.
They received only a promise of a vote on the ACA tax credits and assurances that federal workers fired by the Trump Administration would be rehired.
In the meantime, people are receiving notice that their premiums are going up. In Michigan, insurers are ending coverage for people through Obamacare. That could leave as many as 200,000 people in the state without coverage.
Michigan U.S. Senator Gary Peters voted to keep the government closed. He thinks it’s going to get worse unless those ACA tax credits are restored.
Listen: U.S. Senator Gary Peters on the federal government shutdown
“Nationally, well over 20 million people are seeing large increases in their health care estimates, somewhere around 10 million will lose their health care coverage as a result,” Peters said.
Peters says he would like the Democrats who capitulated and voted to end the shutdown to speak for themselves.
“I know that they were focused on working on health care costs, but we’re also concerned about the cost of the shutdown itself,” Peters said. “Certainly government employees who had been going without a check for quite some time, which puts a real strain on our families.”
Peters disagrees this was a failure of leadership.
“We don’t work for Chuck Schumer,” Peters said. “Every Senator represents the people in their state. I work for the people in Michigan, and my colleagues around the country work for the people in their individual states, and they have to ultimately do what they think is right.”
The Epstein emails
The White House is scrambling following the release of a new batch of emails to and from rapist and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The emails seem to implicate that President Donald Trump was aware of Epstein’s crimes, and that the president maintained a relationship with the disgraced financier well into his first term in office.
Epstein died in federal custody in 2019.
After promising on the campaign trail to release all the evidence collected in Epstein’s prosecution, the Trump Administration has backed off that pledge.
Peters says the American public needs to see all of the documents.
“Bottom line, I think there’s enough information out now that raises so many questions that have to be answered that we need to see the release of all of the documents,” Peters said.
Earlier this year, the Trump Administration moved Epstein co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell to a minimum-security prison.
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Last week, Democrats ran across the country on alleviating the issue of affordability.
Those people spreading the message were often young, 30-somethings.
That was true in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani became mayor-elect. And it was true in Detroit, where Mary Sheffield won as well. The voters who brought those people to victory — particularly in the New York mayoral race and the Virginia governor’s race — were young voters.
Amanda Litman, the co-founder and president of Run For Something, recently told a reporter that of the over 200 left candidates affiliated with her organization, nearly every one who achieved victory did it by discussing affordability, particularly housing costs.
So, how much does the issue of “affordability” translate to more liberal and more conservative places across the country? And, how much can we understand about what young people want from what we saw last week?
Litman joined The Metro to discuss.
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Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield ran on several promises: creating job opportunities for young people, improving schools, and investing in neighborhoods.
It’s no question that her platform was appealing, as the candidate won 77% of the vote. Detroit has a lot of poverty, a significant amount of crime, and many residents are in need of better job opportunities.
How are residents reacting to Sheffield’s victory? What do they hope she accomplishes? And, what kinds of organizing and coalition building will the new mayor have to do to live up to her promises?
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Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield had a historic win on Tuesday, becoming the first woman to be elected Mayor of Detroit. In this episode of MichMash, Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow and Alethia Kasben are joined by BridgeDetroit reporter Malachi Barrett and Detroit One Million founder Sam Robinson to discuss how Sheffield might govern in her new role.
Not only is Sheffield the first woman to become mayor for the city of Detroit, but she had record turnout in comparison to her predecessor.
“Duggan is talked about as this electoral juggernaut, especially in his re-election campaigns. He never had above 75% or even hit 75,000 votes,” Barrett said. “Sheffield had both.”
Barrett also said Sheffield was more present in the community and had better relationships than her opponent, Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr.
Sheffield’s trajectory
From here, Sheffield’s career could go in many different directions. But according to Robinson, Detroit is the main focus for the young politician.
He recounted stories from her election night afterparty and says he believes she aspires to be a candidate like former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young. Robinson also said that her representation as an African American woman has inspired a lot of people.
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Political junkies have their minds on the elections that just happened this past week. But one year ahead, there are a lot more elections in the state.
That’s true for the governor’s race, where a slate of Democratic and Republican candidates, in addition to an independent candidate, are running for the seat.
Currently, Congressman John James and former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox are in the lead for the Republican nomination. Why? And, what do they need to do to win?
Producer Sam Corey spoke to longtime Michigan Republican strategist Jeff Timmer to find out.
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For the first time, a woman is mayor-elect for the City of Detroit.
Mary Sheffield is a 38-year old Black woman and the current Detroit City Council President. In becoming mayor, she’ll have a much brighter spotlight flashing on her. And many agree that that light, because of her gender, will carry scrutiny that Mayor Duggan never had to face.
Notably, Detroit already has many women leading organizations and departments across the city. So how significant is Sheffield’s win? And, what kinds of things might she need to be concerned about that a man wouldn’t?
To discuss all this now, we have Raquel Constañeda-Lopez served on Detroit City Council at the same time as Sheffield. Now she runs an organization called Restorative Democracy, which supports women of color who hold public office.
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Dearborn voters have elected Mayor Abdullah Hammoud for a second term.
Hammoud won with more than 70% of the votes in his bid against challenger Nagi Almudhegi.
He told a crowd of about 250 people at the Bint Jebail Cultural Center Tuesday night that the city is built on coexistence across faiths, backgrounds, and political views.
Crowd at the Bint Jebail Cultural Center in Dearborn on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
“To our Arab American community, to our Polish, Irish, and Italian American families, to every new neighbor and every long time resident, white, Black or brown, to every faith and every background, Dearborn is a place where you are seen, where you are valued, and where you belong.”
Sparks fly in celebration of Hammoud’s win in the 2025 mayoral election in Dearborn
Hammoud became the city’s first Arab American and Muslim mayor in 2021 after mobilizing volunteers for clean-up efforts from catastrophic floods.
Hammoud ran on a bid to continue the work he started four years ago. He said, “The way to win re-election campaigns is to treat people with dignity, to meet them in their homes and in their communities, listen to their needs, and deliver change that their families can see and can feel. That’s what we’re doing in Dearborn.”
Also in Dearborn, voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to create a ward system for districted city council seats.
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How are residents reacting to Sheffield’s victory? What do they hope she accomplishes? And, what kinds of organizing and coalition building will the new mayor have to do to live up to her promises?
Hamtramck City Clerk Rana Faraj says 150 absentee ballots were rejected for not having a signature on the ballot or for ballot signatures that didn’t match city records.
Audits show Detroit’s polling sites still fall short on accessibility, even as Michigan expands early voting. We explore what disabled voters faced this election — and what must change before the next one.
In Northwest Detroit, District 7 went to Denzel McCampbell.
He defeated Democratic Michigan State Representative Karen Whitsett, who angered many in her party by caucusing with Republicans during last year’s lame duck session.
McCampbell is a former communications director for Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and a Democratic Socialist. He says his message resonates with Detroit voters.
“When we’re talking about delivering on basic needs, making sure that folks can have housing, that they can have food on the table in there, and have what they need to thrive, I think that’s what this moment is about, and we have to make sure that we not only build on it, but work together to deliver on that as well.”
McCampbell says he has a good relationship with Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield after working with her on the Detroit charter commission.
“When I was on the charter Commission, we worked on the Detroiter Bill of Rights, and I really look forward to meeting and coming together on how we can really make sure we’re serving our neighborhoods and really delivering for our neighborhoods, especially in District 7.”
McCampbell is now the second Democratic Socialist on city council after Gabriela Santiago-Romero won re-election.
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WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
How are residents reacting to Sheffield’s victory? What do they hope she accomplishes? And, what kinds of organizing and coalition building will the new mayor have to do to live up to her promises?
Hamtramck City Clerk Rana Faraj says 150 absentee ballots were rejected for not having a signature on the ballot or for ballot signatures that didn’t match city records.
Audits show Detroit’s polling sites still fall short on accessibility, even as Michigan expands early voting. We explore what disabled voters faced this election — and what must change before the next one.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mary Sheffield won the race for Detroit mayor on Tuesday, defeating Solomon Kinloch Jr. to become the first woman elected to lead the city.
Sheffield, the Detroit City Council president, received more than 50% of the vote in August’s all-party municipal primary. The office is officially nonpartisan.
Sheffield will succeed three-term incumbent Mike Duggan, who did not seek reelection. The Associated Press declared Sheffield the winner at 9:12 p.m. EST.
How are residents reacting to Sheffield’s victory? What do they hope she accomplishes? And, what kinds of organizing and coalition building will the new mayor have to do to live up to her promises?
Hamtramck City Clerk Rana Faraj says 150 absentee ballots were rejected for not having a signature on the ballot or for ballot signatures that didn’t match city records.
Audits show Detroit’s polling sites still fall short on accessibility, even as Michigan expands early voting. We explore what disabled voters faced this election — and what must change before the next one.
For a long time, Michigan’s roads didn’t have the funding they needed. Last month lawmakers placed a 24%tax on marijuana products sold in the state to fill that gap. The vote was mostly along party lines with Democrats supporting it, and Republicans rejecting the measure.
But the vote needed bipartisan support, and they got it from Upper Peninsula State Senator Ed McBroom. Last week, Metro Producer Sam Corey spoke with the Republican about why he gave a “yes” vote, and how he’s found common ground with Democrats who live in Michigan’s cities.
They spoke before the state Senate voted to cover SNAP funding and before President Donald Trump complied with rulings to temporarily and partially fund SNAP for this month.
At the end of the conversation, state Senator McBroom was asked about whether he would support state funding for SNAP. Senator McBroom, along with several other Senate Republicans, did not attend the vote for that in the state senate later the same day.
McBroom’s office said that the senator was told by Democratic leadership that they wouldn’t be voting on anything and that the SNAP bill wasn’t originally on the day’s agenda. Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks’ office said the Senate Republican caucus was provided the bill and had time to meet to discuss it ahead of the vote.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
In this episode, cannabis attorney Lance Boldrey joins the show. He chats with WDET’s Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Alethia Kasben about how the 2026 state budget affects the cannabis industry.
Plus, Republican gubernatorial candidates had their first debate this week. We discuss a notable absence and the major themes of the debate.
How does the wholesale tax on the marijuana industry affect businesses of different sizes?
Reviewing the first Republican debate for Michigan’s 2026 gubernatorial race
Which gubernatorial candidates have raised the most money so far?
Cannabis in the state budget
The 2026 state budget included a 24% tax increase on the marijuana market. The tax will be applied to the retailer’s sales regardless of other taxes already listed in the line of items of any marijuana invoice.
Boldrey, who focuses on cannabis cases at the law firm Dykema, says small businesses will be hit the hardest.
“I think the folks that get the most negatively impacted are the micro businesses, which are the social equity part of the industry, which are people that come in as craft producers. They don’t have any wholesale activity at all because everything is grown, processed and sold in the exact same location.”
Boldrey says these micro businesses can’t make a wholesale purchase or a wholesale sale, but they will have a wholesale tax on their production.
Reviewing the gubernatorial debate
At the Republican gubernatorial debate this week, there was a notable absence from U.S. Representative John James, who said he would not participate in these debates until the field was more settled. As of now, James is perceived as the frontrunner, but there may be risk with his approach.
He’s already upset some GOP delegates mad by skipping a different event organized by the state party. If he does win the primary, he may have to win those delegates back heading into the general election.
Also, campaign finance reports were due this week from all parties. Republican John James, Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Independent Mike Duggan have raised the most from donors in their campaigns so far.
One-of-a-kind podcasts from WDET bring you engaging conversations, news you need to know and stories you love to hear. Keep the conversations coming. Please make a gift today.
Next week, the Hamtramck will residents will elect a new mayor.
That’s because the outgoing mayor, Amer Ghalib was picked to be the Kuwait ambassador. His Senate confirmation is stalling because of a positive remark he made about Saddam Hussein, liking a social media post comparing Jews to monkeys, and for his refusal to condemn Hamas’ attacks on Israeli civilians.
Still, in Hamtramck, residents have a choice of who they want to be the next mayor. Those candidates include Adam Alharbi, Hamtramck City Council Member Muhith Mahmood, and write-in candidate Lynn Blasey.
WDET reporter Nargis Rahman reported on the race, and joined The Metro to discuss.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
Detroit is preparing for a mayoral election filled with “firsts.”
For the first time in a dozen years voters will elect a new leader to guide the Motor City, as Hizzoner Mike Duggan leaves to make an independent bid for governor.
And the next mayor will become either the first woman or, as far as city historians can tell, the first clergyman to ever sit atop Detroit’s government.
Blazing a political trail
History was on display at a recent news conference in Detroit’s Dexter-Linwood neighborhood.
Detroit City Council President and mayoral candidate Mary Sheffield stood in front of a historic-but-abandoned apartment building.
The structure is on a fast-track for development because of a program Sheffield helped create to address the city’s lack of affordable housing. She called it one of many initiatives she pursued during her dozen years on Council.
But Sheffield is also fully aware that she herself is at the precipice of Detroit history.
Mary Sheffield announcing her mayoral bid at a union hall in Detroit.
Sheffield is the first woman in more than 30 years to make it to the general election for mayor.
“I have thought about it,” she said. “I definitely lead with the fact that I’m the most experienced candidate, I just happen to be a woman. But I do think it sends a powerful message that we are ready for women leadership in Detroit. Most importantly it shows our next generation of women that they can be anything they put their mind to.”
Sheffield says she believes Detroiters are finally prepared to send a woman to the mayor’s office.
“That’s what I’ve heard. I’ve been campaigning for a year now and there’s a lot of excitement. In 324 years we’ve never had a woman lead. We’ve had 75 mayors in Detroit. Not one has been a woman. We’ve seen women lead in other cities, so it’s not new.”
Tough enough to be mayor
Many women have chaired Detroit’s City Council.
But some who sought the mayor’s job, like former Council Member Saunteel Jenkins, say they ran into gender-based roadblocks.
“There is still a real power base and a voting base that, for whatever reason, doesn’t believe women should be leading,” Jenkins said.
She came up just short of being one of the top two finalists in this year’s mayoral race.
But Jenkins is a veteran campaigner for political office.
And she says women candidates deal with a level of scrutiny their male counterparts do not.
“Things as little as the height of the heels you wear or if you have on heels at all,” Jenkins said. “I was talking to someone just recently about when Jennifer Granholm ran the first time for governor in Michigan and how much time they spent even on her hair color. Because people would judge her based on how blonde she was or was not.”
Jenkins had navigated political gauntlets before.
Yet despite having served as City Council president and the CEO of a non profit, Jenkins says it was clear a different standard applied to being the executive officer of Detroit’s government.
“There were people who said, ‘Leading Council, that’s amazing. But the mayor’s office? You sure you want to do that? That’s a tough job.’ As if women would not be tough enough to do that. And that was a question I was asked often, are you tough enough for this job? It’s not something that people would ask a man.”
Mixing ministry with the mayor’s office
The candidate vying with Sheffield to be Detroit’s next mayor has faced his own questions — because he is a man of the cloth.
The Rev. Solomon Kinloch, Jr. spent his primary election night victory speech hammering Sheffield. Not for her gender, but for what he alleged is her neglect of neighborhoods where a majority of children still live in poverty.
“Where do we go from here? Detroit deserves results,” Kinloch told the crowd of supporters. “We deserve more than you just talking the talk. We deserve you stepping up and standing up and walking the walk.”
Russ McNamara interviews Rev. Solomon Kinloch in the WDET studio ahead of Detroit’s mayoral election.
Kinloch has said he’ll continue pastoring his Triumph Church if he’s elected mayor. He calls his campaign an extension of his ministry.
“This gives an opportunity to see the preacher in a different role. To know that all of us got a responsibility, not to just do something from a spiritual perspective, but to do something social and political. That’s my rearing and my raising. And if I don’t do nothing else, I believe that this is a great opportunity to inspire an entire city that ordinary people can do some extraordinary things.”
The bully political pulpit
But other pastors in the Motor City say mixing politics and the pulpit often means walking a treacherous moral tightrope.
The Rev. Nicholas Hood III was a Detroit City Council member in the early 2000’s and twice made unsuccessful bids for the mayor’s office.
Hood says while on Council he had to serve both the public and his own conscience.
“It’s one thing to take a position on any issue from the perspective of political expediency. But then to add the burden of deciding if this is morally right. Does this position jive with my faith and what I think God would expect of me?”
Hood says running for office was not exactly what some of his congregation expected. Or approved of.
“My church members always raised an eyebrow. They were proud of me. I think they still are. But people would say, ‘I don’t want you to be corrupted. Politics is corrupt.’ I would always counter, ‘But that’s all the more reason why you need people like me to get engaged.’ ” Detroit’s churches do have a history of being politically active.
Sheffield noted that fact during a recent and contentious televised mayoral debate with Kinloch.
She said, “We have a pastor here who has not developed one unit of housing. But we have a lot of your peers who’ve joined in our faith-based initiative, where we’re gonna be supporting our faith-based institutions to spur economic development and build housing here in the city of Detroit.”
Kinloch’s response was one of many testy exchanges between the two mayoral contenders.
“Mary, it’s disingenuous for you to assault me and my church for all of the work that you know we’ve done in this community. Triumph Church and Solomon Kinloch have done more for this community than anybody you know.”
Detroiter Ronald Ferguson, for one, says he’s seen broken streetlights come on and blighted buildings come down in his neighborhood.
But Ferguson questions how much Sheffield had to do with that.
He says Kinloch’s message of reducing poverty resonates with him.
“I feel he’s for the people. And I think he’ll do a better job than what we’ve seen over the past 6-10 years from his opponent,” Ferguson said. “She’s been Council President for so long. Yet where’s all the results from her efforts? So I’m ready to try something different to see if I can get a different result.”
But there’s a different vibe at a watch party where Detroiters viewed this month’s acrimonious televised debate.
Voters there, like Arlyssa Heard, had few concerns about Sheffield’s record.
Heard says she values both Sheffield’s service and the historic nature of the Council President’s run for mayor.
“I think it’s important,” Heard said. “I think it also is a statement that as long as you’re qualified, whether you are a woman or a man, it means something. But I think it would be great to see a woman lead this town. I don’t know if that’s gonna have anything to do with my decision. But I think it would make for some good things to talk about the next morning over coffee.”
When that sun rises after Election Day it will mark a new dawn for Detroit politics, whether it’s a woman or a minister set to occupy the mayor’s chair.
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WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
DETROIT (AP) — Detroit voters will choose a new mayor Tuesday in the city’s first open-seat mayoral race in a dozen years.
City Council President Mary Sheffield and Triumph Church pastor Solomon Kinloch, both Democrats, will face off for the city’s top job after placing first and second in the Aug. 5 nonpartisan primary. The winner will replace outgoing three-term Mayor Mike Duggan, who is running for governor of Michigan as an independent.
The city faces a vastly different situation than it did when Duggan was first elected in 2013. In July of that year, it became the largest U.S. city ever to file for bankruptcy. The city now has a budget surplus, 12 years of balanced budgets and projected economic growth for the next five years. Homicides and violent crimes are down, while the city’s population has increased for the second consecutive year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Still, the next mayor will face numerous challenges, including a shortage of affordable housing and vast economic disparities along racial lines.
Sheffield has led the field in fundraising throughout the campaign. As of the August primary, her campaign fund more than doubled that of her eight competitors combined.
In the general election, she has far outraised and outspent Kinloch. As of Oct. 19, her campaign had spent more than $1.8 million on her campaign and had roughly $772,000 in the bank. By that same point, Kinloch had spent about $160,000 on the race and had less than $11,000 remaining in the bank.
Since receiving more than 50% of the vote in the August primary, Sheffield has picked up key endorsements from Duggan, as well as from two of her former primary opponents, former city council president Saunteel Jenkins and city council member Fred Durhal. Jenkins received 16% of the primary vote, narrowly losing a spot on the general election ballot to Kinloch, who received about 17%. Durhal received about 3% of the vote.
Soloman Kinloch (left) and Mary Sheffield (right) face off in the race for Detroit’s next mayor this November
The Detroit electorate is overwhelmingly Democratic. In the 2024 presidential election, voters in the city supported Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris over Republican Donald Trump by about a 9-1 ratio.
At a September rally in Howell, Michigan, Vice President JD Vance sent a public message to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that the administration is “happy” to send the National Guard to Detroit. “All you gotta do is ask,” he said.
The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
Michigan’s mandatory recount law does not apply to Detroit’s mayoral race. Instead, candidates may request and pay for a recount, with the payment refunded if the recount changes the outcome. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
What to expect on Tuesday:
How late are polls open?
Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
What’s on the ballot?
The AP will provide vote results and declare the winner in Detroit’s mayoral race.
Who gets to vote?
Any voter registered in Detroit may participate in the mayoral general election.
What do turnout and advance vote look like?
There were more than 518,000 registered voters in Detroit as of the August mayoral primary.
Turnout in that primary was about 17% of registered voters. About 32% of mayoral primary voters cast their ballots in person, while the remaining 68% voted early in person or by absentee ballot.
Turnout in the 2021 mayoral general election was about 19% of registered voters, with about 67% of voters casting early or absentee ballots.
As of Monday, nearly 45,000 ballots had been cast in Detroit before Election Day.
How long does vote counting usually take?
In the August primary, the AP first reported results at 8:32 p.m. ET, or 32 minutes after polls closed. The vote tabulation ended for the night at 4:30 a.m. ET, with 100% of votes counted.
Are we there yet?
As of Tuesday, there will be 364 days until the 2026 midterm elections and 1,099 days until the 2028 general election.
The federal government shutdown nearing the one-month marker. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill remain locked in a standoff over a new budget.
As a result, funding on hand to support certain government programs is running out. That includes SNAP benefits — the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services confirms that it will not be able to provide food stamps to low-income families beginning in November.
Listen: Alex Hill talks about the impact of pausing food stamps on Detroiters
Alex Hill is project director of the Detroit Food Map Initiative, which surveys neighborhoods on grocery access. He says parts of Detroit will be especially hard hit.
“The estimated household income of houses that rely on SNAP is about $29 thousand,” says Hill, “so any household in that range is going to be having a really difficult time.”
He adds that SNAP households will feel a wide range of effects.
“People aren’t going to be able to work as well as they want to,” says Hill. “Kids aren’t going to be able to learn as well as they should. Folks who are reliant on taking medications on a regular basis — you have to take food when you take medicine.”
Hill says pausing SNAP benefits is likely to have a negative impact on grocery stores in low-income areas, that rely on customers using food stamps to shop. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services say pausing the food stamps program is likely to impact about 13% of Michigan households, with 1.4 million residents relying on the service.
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Lynn Blasey, 42, is a write in candidate for Hamtramck mayor. She says she decided to run after community members asked her to run.
“When some community members approached me, it was really asking me to be a voice or a viable choice that residents can feel more comfortable about,” she says.
Blasey is the co-director of Community Arts Partnerships for the College for Creative Studies. She has worked at the education department at the Arab American National Museum, educating people about Arab American communities.
Blasey ran and lost bids for the Hamtramck City Council in 2021 and 2023. She serves as the vice chair of the Hamtramck Arts and Culture Commission.
She created the Hamtramck Area Disaster Recovery Group as part of flood recovery efforts for FEMA after the floods in 2021.
Uplifting Hamtramck
Blasey says she’s concerned about Hamtramck’s public image.
“People across the world have some pretty negative opinions of our city, and so this is a really good opportunity to sway that narrative and help celebrate the wonderful, magical things that make this community so unique and diverse,” she says.
Blasey says she’s disappointed by the recent election fraud in the city.
“I have spoken up previously about the effects cheating has and that people doing it continuously is a degradation of our democracy and really weakens the whole system,” she says.
Blasey says she would like to hold people accountable by taking a firm stance against people who don’t respect the law.
She says it’s important to communicate and connect with community leaders and organizations in Hamtramck to bring people together.
“I think we need to return to having more town hall meetings, utilizing some of our public spaces when there are some of those more challenging issues on the table, really taking those to the community,” she says.
Supporting the arts and businesses
Blasey is connected to the city’s arts community. She says more can be done to leverage artists.
“There is a huge design economy, arts economy, that Hamtramck is not really tapped into. We have a lot of artists here, but we’re not capitalizing on that,” she says.
Blasey is a part of the Hamtramck Downtown Development Authority’s Organization & Promotions sub-committee.
“I think there are some really uniquely Hamtramck ways that we can attract new businesses,” she says.
She says it’s important for people to work together, building on each other’s strengths.
“I think there is so much value in bringing people together,” she says.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
Almost a decade ago, President Donald Trump began campaigning on a very different American policy than the one we previously had. He wanted America to be tougher on China, to build a wall across the Mexico-American border, and to put “America first.”
Today, a lot of that strategy has remained intact, some of it even influencing the Biden administration’s policies.
How do Americans feel about our country’s foreign policy stances? And, how do they want to see America lead?
This month, she began speaking with people around the country about what they make of American foreign policy. She is in town to understand how people in metro Detroit feel about the topic, and joined The Metro to share her findings.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
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