Voters today elected Detroit’s first white mayor in 40 years to help lead the struggling city out of bankruptcy.
Mike Duggan, who ran on his financial rescue of the city’s largest hospital system, beat Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon 55 percent to 45 percent with 98 percent of precincts reporting, the Detroit News reported. Both candidates are Democrats. The city of Detroit is 83 percent African American.
Many times during the Detroit mayoral race, the idea of Duggan victoriously addressing supporters from the podium seemed improbable at best. In June, Duggan was found to be ineligible and blocked from Detroit’s primary ballot after another candidate, Tom Barrow, challenged the date he filed for residency after moving to Detroit from a nearby suburb.
Duggan briefly quit the race before announcing he would mount a write-in campaign. He beat the field of candidates, including Napoleon, by at least 20,000 votes. The validity of his write-in votes was challenged numerous times in court.
During the pivotal day for Detroit, the U.S. Department of Justice was on hand tomonitor the election to ensure the Voting Rights Act was upheld. The DOJ was also present in Hamtramck, an enclave of Detroit, two counties in Ohio and one in New York.
