Detroit’s mayoral candidates spent the final days into Tuesday’s primary crisscrossing the city in a last-ditch effort to ask voters for their support — visiting senior centers and churches, joining community cleanups and dance parties, and reaching residents through the tried-and-true technique of simply knocking on their doors.
With Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield the clear front-runner, according to polls, the race for second place is expected to be tight. Nine candidates are running in the pivotal Aug. 5 primary, and two will advance to the November election to replace Mayor Mike Duggan.
But despite an open contest unlike any the city has seen since its 2013 bankruptcy, many mayoral hopefuls spoke to having to battle not only one another, but political apathy in the city more broadly. As of Sunday, Aug. 3, 45,885 absentee ballots had been returned, putting primary turnout on pace to reach between 13-18%, the clerk’s office said. Additionally, 2,367 voters have voted early, surpassing the city’s expectation of seeing up to 1,750 early voters. Turnout was 14% during the last municipal primary, in 2021.
Michigan primary election results 2025
In her final push to reach the city’s seniors — which a recent report found make up more than 60% of primary voters — Sheffield leaned on a trusted surrogate: her grandmother, Mary Coty.
Coty, the 88-year-old nurse who retired from the Detroit Medical Center, introduced Sheffield on Wednesday, July 30, at the Bellemere Apartments senior home, touting her granddaughter’s longtime commitment to community service and ability to help balance city budgets since bankruptcy.
“If you look at Mary’s record, you’re going to say, ‘Why has she been elected over and over again?’ And if you look closely, from the age of 26, she became the youngest person ever to be elected to your City Council,” and council president. “Those in charge thought that she had the leadership qualities to represent not only your City Council, but to represent the people of Detroit.”
Sheffield promised a dozen seniors that she would launch a senior department within her first 100 days — run by seniors — to help address concerns around building maintenance, neighborhood blight and access to city services.
“What we need is a liaison from the mayor’s office that comes here at least once a month and just talks to you all,” Sheffield said. “What’s going on? How can we help? What services the city is providing. Because there’s a lot of programs and resources that you probably don’t even know about.”
Those gathered raised concerns about public safety and rising rents.
“It goes up and we’re on a fixed income,” said Delbra Butler, 67. “I don’t understand the concept of why (rent) goes up and my income stays the same.”
Kathleen Mosby, 61, described waking up to a bullet near her table after a shooting outside her apartment. “I could’ve been a statistic,” she told the council president.
Sheffield said reducing crime and preventing displacement are among her priorities. She also has promised to establish a gun violence prevention office within her first 100 days, treating the issue as a public health crisis, and to designate an office to provide housing support for seniors and renters.
While President Donald Trump recently vowed to slash grants toward gun violence prevention, Sheffield said to fund her initiatives she plans to bring on an economist to determine ways the city can diversify its revenue amid potential federal funding cuts.
“The political climate has changed,” she said. “We need to figure out new ways to fund this work.”
In her final week, Sheffield made appearances at block parties, picnics — including one with Judge Greg Mathis — and other community events across the city.
Final sprint
With a recent Target-Insyght poll showing Saunteel Jenkins in a virtual dead heat with Pastor Solomon Kinloch for second place, the nonprofit CEO and former Detroit City Council member said she is working to personally reach as many voters as possible in the final sprint of what her team has described as a door-by-door, call-by-call grassroots campaign.
A packed itinerary shared with the Free Press on Friday, Aug. 1, included youth events, concerts and community walks. During a Thursday, July 31, virtual news conference, Jenkins said her team made 30,000 calls and knocked on 1,000 doors that month, with plans to hit at least 500 more doors by Election Day.
“We’ve done everything possible to make sure we’re connected with voters, and when voters have an opportunity to hear our message, we come out ahead,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins’ platform involves at least six priorities, which she has dubbed “Saunteel Six:” They include establishing a master plan for each district; investing in after-school and community center programs; boosting safer streets and neighborhoods, to include commonsense gun laws and violence prevention; establishing career paths to launch paid gigs for young Detroiters to prepare for future jobs, and supporting families through child care access, affordable housing and providing support and resources for seniors.
At a “Dancing in the D” event Saturday night at Spirit Plaza in front of City Hall, Jenkins mingled with dancers taking a break from doing the hustle to make her pitch. She took the stage to encourage everyone to vote — without specifying for whom — but ended with her campaign slogan: “Keep thinkin’ Jenkins!”
The nonprofit leader said during her Thursday news conference that she has focused on direct voter outreach because, unlike her top opponents, “we didn’t have a built-in wallet, we didn’t have the political pulpit — no pun intended — and we didn’t have the political family connections.
“We also don’t have two or three 501(c)(4)s that are spending … dark money,” or “city resources to send out thinly veiled mailers to people’s houses,” she added, in a nod to recent Free Press reporting on Sheffield.
Polls show the council president with twice Jenkins’ vote share and more than $1 million raised.
Jenkins also commented on Kinloch’s recently resurfaced 1993 butcher-knife attack on his ex-wife, saying she, too, was a victim of domestic abuse as a teen.
“It stays with you forever,” Jenkins said. “You get past it, you learn to live with it, but some things never go away.” Kinloch previously told the Free Press he had learned from his mistake and was on good terms with his ex-wife, whose family attends his Triumph Church. The woman has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Kinloch addressed supporters Sunday night at a gospel music celebration put on by metro Detroit pastors and musicians at Mount Zion Baptist Church on Van Dyke — an event so well attended it snarled traffic for blocks.
“I can’t stand to see a city where you’ve got the majority of people that are just surviving instead of thriving,” Kinloch told the crowd of hundreds. “When somebody says ‘Why is a preacher getting in the race?’ This is an extension of what I’ve been doing and what I’m supposed to do all the time.”
More than a half-dozen Detroit pastors took turns at the pulpit to endorse Kinloch, in a previously long-prohibited practice now permitted by the IRS.
“Friends, I’ve taken the time to weigh the options and it’s not even close,” the Rev. Theodore Turman of First Baptist Church of Detroit said, after giving Kinloch his endorsement.
Singers and other religious leaders called out the campaign slogan, “I rock with Kinloch!” Some urged attendees to donate to the campaign using a QR code on flyers passed out to the crowd, touting Kinloch’s fundraising skills — as evidenced by the church he has grown to 40,000 parishioners and seven locations — as an asset for an aspiring mayor.
In the week leading up to the election, Kinloch partook in nightly listening sessions with community groups and residents across the city who invited him to speak, campaign volunteer Cedrick Scott told the Free Press. The campaign has also ramped up door-knocking, calls and visits to senior homes. That day, Kinloch had joined other front-runners at pre-primary breakfast hosted by radio personality Mildred Gaddis of The Mildred Gaddis Show on Kiss FM 105.9, and preached at his church’s Detroit location on the east side.
Asked whether he felt the campaign had been hurt by recent reporting of Kinloch’s 1993 case, which resulted in a misdemeanor assault and battery conviction, Scott, who previously ran communications for Kinloch’s church, said he felt it had actually given the campaign a boost.
“I dare say that support really increased,” said Scott. “We’ve heard from a lot of undecided voters who said that incident made them pay attention a little bit more because it seemed targeted, it wasn’t related to current news … it seemed like ‘politics,’ so that really helped us increase in some areas.”
Voter apathy and engagement
District 7 Councilmember Fred Durhal III, who has trailed in polls with single-digit support, hosted top backers for a get-out-the-vote rally on July 30.
“This election is going to define what the city of Detroit looks like for the next two decades,” he told the several dozen people gathered at the Boys and Girls Club on Collingwood Street, conceding that the crowd of community leaders was already “the choir.”
Durhal told the Free Press he canvassed low-turnout neighborhoods in the lead-up to the rally, knocking doors where records show no one had voted in two or three election cycles and pointing residents toward the DJ and free food.
“It seems like turnout has just not really been what we thought it was going to be,” said Durhal, who previously recognized voter apathy plaguing his district in 2021 while campaigning for the City Council. “So we’re taking these last few days and just doing engagement.”
“It’s my hope we can … work to lessen the apathy that exists … because some folks still feel forgotten,” Durhal said.
Attorney Todd Perkins echoed the concern.
A political newcomer polling at just 4%, according to some recent polling, Perkins’ campaign said he had a week of appearances and door-knocking scheduled into Primary Day on Aug. 5.
“Right now, we’re putting everything we’ve got into reaching as many Detroiters as possible,” he said in a statement to the Free Press. “Our goal is to make everyone feel included … they’re predicting only up to 18% voter turnout, and that’s just not enough for Detroit.
“While we’d love everyone to vote Perkins, what’s most important is that Detroiters engage and make their voices heard.”
Perkins said he remained optimistic that he could advance to the general election despite his low polling numbers and “being overlooked by some mainstream media outlets,” noting the number of Perkins for Mayor yard signs across the city.
A James Craig campaign representative did not provide details about the former Detroit police chief’s plans heading into primary Election Day, but photos show he attended the Gaddis breakfast.
The former Detroit police chief has raised just $23,000 and recent polling showed him with only 6% of the vote — a 20-point drop from a poll by the same firm in February.
John Barlow spent his final days stopping at cookouts in various neighborhoods, providing bottled water and bus tickets at bus terminals, as well as visiting local churches. Barlow said he plans to finish off by knocking doors on Monday.
“This campaign never waited for corporate donors or confused unions and factions — we’ve been building it with the people from day one,” Barlow said in a statement. “We’ve given away water, paid for bus rides and prayed with neighbors. We didn’t come to perform, we came to serve.”
Candidates Joel Haashiim and DaNetta Simpson did not respond for comment.
Dana Afana is the Detroit city hall reporter for the Free Press. Contact: dafana@freepress.com. Follow her: @DanaAfana
Violet Ikonomova is an investigative reporter at the Free Press focused on government and police accountability in Detroit. Contact her at vikonomova@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit mayoral candidates sprint across city to squeeze in final efforts to reach voters
Reporting by Dana Afana and Violet Ikonomova, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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