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The Detroit News
November 6, 2013
Mike Duggan overcame questions about his outsider status to become Detroit’s first white mayor in about four decades, beating Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon on Tuesday in a campaign about who could best revitalize a failing city.
For Duggan, born in Detroit but who lived much of his life in the western Wayne County suburb of Livonia, it was a victory rooted in his turnaround persona that may also reflect a move away from decades of racial politics.
He will replace one-term Mayor Dave Bing in a city where 83 percent of the residents are black and in a region where racial divisions have strained city-suburb relations until recently.
A beaming Duggan Tuesday made a veiled reference to race but immediately brushed it aside to focus squarely on the monumental tasks that voters decided to put in his hands — and which he’ll share with an emergency manager appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder who holds the power to make most major decisions.
“What we have in common is much more powerful than what divides us. Now the real work begins,” Duggan said. “They want somebody to go into City Hall, get rid of the bureaucracy and get city services going.”
Both Duggan and Napoleon sought to avoid an emergency manager, but Duggan said he’d work with Kevyn Orr.
Duggan will also work with a new city council to address huge problems — high crime, poor services — with limited finances. The city has become synonymous with civic dysfunction as it’s been staggered by the near constant loss of people for the better part of 60 years.
On Tuesday night, Orr called Duggan to congratulate him and said he’d meet with him soon.
“In this time of important change for the City, Detroiters have come together to voice their desire for progress,” Orr said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Mayor-elect Mike Duggan to build the vibrant and strong future the citizens of Detroit deserve.”
What became the more powerful factor in the election of Duggan was his Mr. Fix-It resume, not his complexion.
“This man has a plan for everything,” Arthur White, 46, said Tuesday after he voted in northwest Detroit Tuesday.
The mood at Duggan’s victory party was euphoric. It has been a long haul for supporters who had to rally from the primary, when Duggan got knocked off the ballot and had to run as a write-in. He beat Napoleon then in a surprising 52-30 percent rout and again Tuesday, winning 55-45 percent.
In beating the sheriff, Duggan knocked off a candidate who campaigned on his goal to make the city a place where “Detroiters run Detroit.” Duggan riffed off that theme during his victory speech, acknowledging the work ahead as the city fights to rebuild.
“”Detroit’s turnaround will not occur until every day Detroiters are involved in that effort. … We need everybody to pull together,” Duggan said.
Duggan overcame in Napoleon a lifelong Detroiter who touted his ties to a city where he was once police chief. On Tuesday night, Napoleon said he ran into a better-funded candidate and vowed to run again in four years.
“We got outspent 5-1. We worked very hard (and) I appreciate all your efforts you did to put us this far,” he said, thanking organized labor and local clergy. “This was a defining moment for this community. What we learned is voter apathy can’t exist in this community if we want to change it.”
“Things are not over,” he said. “You will see me again.”
Turnout was up slightly from 2009, with just over one quarter of registered voters casting ballots over 2009’s 22.6 percent turnout.
