(NewsNation) — Detroit voters will decide Tuesday who will be the next mayor of their city.
City Council President Mary Sheffield and Triumph megachurch pastor Solomon Kinloch Jr., who are both Democrats, are facing off in the general election after placing first and second in the nonpartisan August primary election, The Associated Press reports.
The winner of Detroit’s mayoral race will replace three-term Mayor Mike Duggan, who is leaving office to run for governor of Michigan as an independent candidate. Duggan took the helm at a time of economic instability in Detroit in 2013. Since then, the city has rebounded significantly, but its next mayor will still face numerous challenges, including a shortage of affordable housing and racial economic disparities.
Just days before the election, Kinloch Jr., who was trailing his challenger, accused Sheffield of violating city rules by voting to award valuable city contracts to someone she was dating during her dozen years on the City Council, as reported by the Detroit Free Press.
The election comes at a time when federal resources to the city are being reduced, while the threat of federal intervention, potentially in the form of a National Guard deployment, remains high.
At a September rally in Howell, Michigan, Vice President JD Vance said in a public message to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., that the Trump administration is “happy to send the National Guard to Detroit, Michigan. All you got to do is ask.”
Polls in Michigan close at 9 p.m. ET. Follow the results of the Detroit mayoral election in the tracker below:
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
