Detroit mayoral candidates battle for a spot in Mike Duggan's shadow

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MACKINAC ISLAND ― When Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan took part in his first mayoral debate, in 2013 on Mackinac Island, he was fighting for a spot in the shadow of state-appointed Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, who led the city through bankruptcy before handing control back to elected leaders in 2014.
Last week, five leading candidates for mayor took the island debate stage to battle for a spot in the shadow of Mike Duggan.
In 2013, the city was shedding its paralyzing debt in bankruptcy court and preparing to usher in a new era of investment, service restoration and hope.
That era, financially, is coming to a close, with long-deferred pension payments coming due, stimulus money drying up and the specter of dramatic federal funding cuts looming under President Donald Trump.
Each of the five candidates debating at the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference sought to ride a precarious line ― promising to maintain the trajectory of economic progress fostered by Duggan, who is stepping down at the end of this year to run for governor as an independent, and pledging to deliver more direct results to the neighborhoods most in need of investment.
'We're that phoenix that has been rising from the ashes. We need to make sure that it doesn't crash into a window,' said mayoral candidate Fred Durhal III, a Detroit city councilman whose father, Fred Durhal Jr., was a candidate on that 2013 debate stage.
'The next mayor will face a completely different financial reality than the current mayor,' mayoral candidate and former council president Saunteel Jenkins said during Thursday's debate.
For Solomon Kinloch, pastor of Triumph Church ― the only candidate at the debate without government experience ― it's particularly important to establish himself as the candidate who could best take Duggan's ball and run with it. 'While we come from a dark place of dismal debt, (Duggan) gave us a great fiscal foundation for us to do bigger and bolder,' he said.
Former Police Chief James Craig, appointed in 2013 by Orr, pointed out he's the only candidate who served directly under Duggan, arguing that practical experience gives him an edge: 'There's no book for this. You need someone who can plug in and do it right and do it the first time.'
Candidate Mary Sheffield, who has been president of the Detroit City Council since 2022 and is the frontrunner in the race, according to a Target Insyght poll released last month, said she wants to keep Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison in his role, and to expand existing initiatives around youth crime diversion and robust mental health strategy. And she believes she's best positioned to maintain a business-friendly posture.
'I will make sure that Detroit is the best place in America to start a business,' she said.
Kinloch and Durhal each pinpointed a key element in that upcoming election.
'A majority of the electorate is not even engaged in the democratic process,' Kinloch said.
'The question is ― who's protecting and speaking and communicating for the people who aren't in the room,' Durhal said.
Those may have been the most telling comments of the week.
Four other candidates ― Todd Perkins, DaNetta Simpson, Jonathan Barlow and Joel Haashiim ― weren't invited to appear.
The five candidates debated the issues in front of a crowd of newsmakers and moneymakers, and faced a handful of groans, chuckles and heckles.
But it was a far more muted crowd than those that await them back home.
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Improving the quality of K-12 education, and with it the potential for more families to stay in the city, remains the largest hurdle in Detroit's path to prosperity. Everyone agrees about that.
Detroit's public schools do not fall under the mayor's purview. There's an elected school board ― once sidelined by emergency management and still sensitive to interference ― that is responsible for driving the district forward.
But, everyone also seems to agree, the mayor's office has a key role to play in offering support in the areas of transportation and after school programming.
'I think it's important for the next mayor to build on that and fill gaps,' Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told the Free Press on the island Wednesday.
'The wrong leader could put us backwards. Leadership matters. Who is mayor matters … From a school district point of view, I'm hopeful that (Detroit's next) leader understands collaboration and seeking to understand problems, rather than just reacting to them.'
Kinloch wants to appoint a chief educational officer to coordinate support services for the school district.
Sheffield wants to expand the Community Education Commission, a Duggan-era entity that operates in northwest Detroit, to support bussing and accountability measures for both traditional and charter schools.
But there was little discussion during Thursday's debate on improving overall public transit in the city, which Vitti says is a primary issue for families with children in Detroit schools, both for getting kids to school and getting parents to work.
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Meanwhile ― and this is a hell of a meanwhile ― Michiganders are also facing 2026 races for governor and U.S. Senate, each race with its own implications of immense proportions.
Most of the candidates in those races were fiercely making the rounds on the island last week.
Duggan, who is running for governor as an independent, having abandoned the Democratic Party, introduced an elaborate, statewide school improvement plan that he framed as a systemic disruption that he believes would upend Michigan's two-party political system: boosting school budgets and early reading programs, career and technical education programs and threatening to fire school principals and superintendents who don't improve student performance within five years.
'Now look at that list and tell me which thing would Republicans or Democrats disagree with. There's nothing partisan about this,' Duggan said about his plan.
There is, in fact, plenty that Democrats and Republicans would debate about his plan. But the message was strong. And his opponents have their work cut out for them.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democratic candidate for governor, intends her own disruptions.
She calls investing in education "the whole ballgame," and sees robust mental health support for kids as key. She wants to do away with antiquated business tax breaks and incentives. And she wants to build a vast light rail across the state.
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, another Democratic gubernatorial candidate, has healthy outstate name recognition, according to a Glengariff Group poll released at the conference. As a sitting sheriff, he has the strongest public safety background in the race, promising significant reforms for both police accountability and effective crime prevention.
Candidates for governor, including Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and former Republican Attorney General Mike Cox, U.S. Rep. John James, R-Shelby Township, and state Sen. Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, have more than a year to stake their own claims to succeed Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who spent the week on Mackinac celebrating recent bipartisan-flavored wins with Trump backing a new fighter mission at Selfridge Air Base and efforts to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.
But unlike the mayor's race, there'll be another Mackinac Policy Conference next May before those elections take place.
Things generally don't change on Mackinac Island. That's kind of the point.
Horse-drawn carriages, pristinely maintained historic landmarks, the faint, ever-present odor of horse manure.
It's an oasis of old-timey charm, where cars are banned, isolated from Michigan's mainland, and far removed from the problems of everyday life.
The annual Mackinac Policy Conference, now 45 years in ― minus a COVID-19 cancellation ― is supposed to be about progress, growth and solutions. But those solutions tend to develop at the pace of a snail making its way up the steep hill to the island's plantation-esque Grand Hotel.
It all lends a sense of deja vu.
Back in 2013, Detroiters were trying to figure out who to put in the mayor's office in an election of gargantuan importance.
Detroiters are back in the same position. This time around, after more than a decade of debt relief, federal aid and modest-to-impressive quality of life improvements across the board and unquestionable progress, the most pressing issues are the same ― crime reduction, school improvement, affordable housing, neighborhood stability and diversifying the city's economy.
In 2013, the city was approaching bankruptcy, and had nowhere to go but up. This time, Detroit has everything to lose.
Khalil AlHajal is deputy editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact: [e-mail]. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit mayoral candidates vie to replace Mike Duggan | Opinion