Detroit mayoral candidates are participating in near-weekly forums in churches, union halls and community spaces to help voters understand their policy positions and inform endorsements by local organizations.
Several influential groups have hosted candidate forums since the April filing deadline solidified which candidates will make the Aug. 5 primary ballot. These events offer an opportunity to hear directly from the field of 10 mayoral hopefuls, gain insight into their personality and philosophy on governance, and distinguish the best from the rest.
There are nine candidates on the ballot and one write-in candidate for voters to choose from in August. The two candidates with the most votes will face each other head-to-head in the November general election.
The August ballot for mayor will include:
- Businessman Jonathan Barlow
- Former Police Chief James Craig
- City Council Member Fred Durhal III
- Businessman Joel Haashiim
- Former Council President and nonprofit CEO Saunteel Jenkins
- Rev. Solomon Kinloch
- Attorney Todd R. Perkins
- Council President Mary Sheffield
- DaNetta Simpson, a two-time mayoral candidate
Community advocate Rogelio Landin is running as a write-in candidate.
BridgeDetroit has been interviewing mayoral candidates for Detroit Next, our new podcast and video feed focused on the 2025 elections. So far, we’ve sat down for long conversations with Durhal, Jenkins, Kinloch and Sheffield.
Here’s a breakdown on what we’ve learned from the first batch of forums.
They’re not debates
Organizers have been careful to ensure the audience knows these events are distinct from mayoral debates.
“This is not a debate, it is a forum to help educate you,” Chuck Stokes, editorial director at WXYZ-TV (Channel 7), explained at a candidate forum hosted by Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on May 8. “There will be plenty of time for the debates, I’m sure. You’ll see things intensify, you’ll see all sorts of commercials and other things that candidates do in the interest of trying to win your support.”
The first official debate is scheduled for May 29 at the Mackinac Policy Conference. It will be between Craig, Durhal, Jenkins, Kinloch and Sheffield. The community group Detroiters United is also organizing a candidate debate on June 7.
The Federal Election Commission defines a debate as an event where candidates appear in face-to-face confrontations with opportunities to respond to each other. Candidates generally don’t engage with each other during forums, instead directing their answers to the audience or moderator.
Candidates have been mostly friendly and non-confrontational while sharing a stage thus far, though Barlow hasn’t hesitated to put others down while setting himself apart. He’s positioned himself as an anti-establishment candidate.
“What you will not hear tonight is a plan from anyone else,” Barlow said while drawing attention to his 11-page policy agenda at a forum hosted by Alpha Kappa Alpha on May 2. He argues other candidates are feeding voters empty rhetoric.
Barlow claimed other candidates don’t ride the bus during a forum on transit hosted by the Detroit Moves conference. Jenkins quickly shot down the accusation, saying she rode the 8-Warren bus two weeks prior with transit activists and used city buses to get to Cass Technical High School. She posted the interaction on Instagram, using it as an opportunity to promote her support for a modern, efficient and connected transit system.
Across multiple forums, Barlow cast suspicion on his opponents while claiming to possess unique business expertise and relationships. He raised allegations of nepotism against Sheffield and Durhal, who both have deep family connections in Detroit politics.
Barlow has often said he’s “the only candidate” with the right knowledge to be mayor. He also blamed his opponents for causing problems the city is currently experiencing and expressed frustrations with elected officials hurting Detroiters with bad decisions.
“Believe what they say if y’all want to,” Barlow said at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church. “The issue is this: They don’t want to reach every family, and I’m going to force them to do so.”
Who gets invited matters
Each event has featured a slightly different lineup as each organization has its own approach on deciding who to invite.
That’s important because of what’s at stake. Some forums are being used to inform members of institutions who will make endorsements that hold sway in various communities.
African American Leadership Institute CEO Al Williams said his group’s event was being organized before the field was solidified, but invitations went to “serious” candidates who filed campaign committees and picked up nominating petitions needed to make the ballot. Kinloch, Landin and Simpson were invited but did not attend.
Williams said the institute won’t make an endorsement in the primary, but the forum was helpful for precinct delegates.
“I’m encouraging more organizations to do forums, no matter how big or small,” Williams said. “We’re most focused on making sure we increase voter turnout, we get more people engaged in this process. This election is too important to not be involved.”
The Metro Detroit AFL-CIO used a different metric to decide who would qualify for its April 29 forum. Candidates who sought the federation’s endorsement and registered at least 4% in a February poll conducted by the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus were invited.
Durhal and Barlow were left out of the event, and both campaigns voiced frustrations with the selection process. Durhal said union members deserved to hear from him. An AFL-CIO spokesman said Durhal was partly disqualified because he requested an endorsement from the statewide organization instead of the Detroit-area affiliate.
“We wanted the ability to articulate our experience,” Durhal said. “We’ll stand with (labor) as we fight for economic development projects that will help create more jobs.”
Barlow accused the event organizers of rigging the stage to protect Sheffield by excluding pro-union candidates like himself and Durhal. Barlow said he would have focused on his plans to create a $500 million business growth fund and labor partnerships.
Sheffield was endorsed by the Service Employees International Union Michigan after the forum, while Kinloch was endorsed by the United Auto Workers Region 1 and Region 1A.
Five participants for the Mackinac Island debate scheduled for May 29 were selected by the Detroit Regional Chamber Political Action Committee. There was no one deciding factor; the group considered fundraising, available polling, endorsements, leadership experience and individual perspectives of the candidates.
It’s all about the neighborhoods
Candidates largely agree on the need to focus on the conditions in neighborhoods that haven’t benefited much from the city’s ongoing revitalization.
Improving Detroit’s neighborhoods is a central theme in the race, as candidates draw connections to issues of housing, safety, affordability, education and more.
Sheffield promoted her work on the council to create a Neighborhood Beautification Program funded with income taxes collected from the Detroit Pistons. Sheffield said she would meet with a coalition of hospitals to find money for home repair grants on Day 1 of her administration.
Sheffield said the city needs to help long-term residents who have stayed in their homes for decades while problems piled up around them. This includes fixing sidewalks, cleaning alleyways and overgrown trees and improving access to home repair funding.
“There are still far too many Detroiters who feel as if the growth and prosperity has not reached their block, their neighborhoods and their lives,” Sheffield said at the AKA forum.
She also wants to create opportunity centers and government offices in neighborhoods so residents don’t have to travel downtown every time they need to interact with the government. Sheffield and Jenkins support adding more neighborhood police officers.
Craig said focusing on neighborhoods is his top priority. He pledged to “blow up” the city’s Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department to eliminate “red tape” standing in the way of building things and starting businesses.
Jenkins wants to lead a detailed planning effort in each city council district to create strategies for building up Detroit’s distinct neighborhoods. She said the plans would identify sites for amenities like housing, grocery stores, laundromats and commercial businesses. Jenkins also wants to direct tax breaks and other incentives to residents in the neighborhoods.
“We would create a development plan in each of the districts based on input from those residents,” Jenkins said at the AFL-CIO forum. “If you live in the district, you get the highest level of incentives.”
Kinloch pushed back on holding more planning meetings, arguing that the city’s leaders have been more about talk than action. But he also plans to convene unions, block club leaders, philanthropy and residents to improve neighborhoods. Kinloch also pledged to create a chief neighborhood officer, a different entity than Mayor Mike Duggan’s Department of Neighborhoods, to collaborate with “external organizations.”
Durhal wants to generate new revenue to fix neighborhoods by bringing more development to the city. He advocated for creating commercial corridor authorities to expand business activity along neighborhood streets, “using the same tools we built downtown and Midtown with.” Durhal proposed cutting property taxes to help residents afford to stay in their homes.
“We have seen amazing growth come to our city,” Durhal said. “We are seeing crime rates drop. We are seeing our neighborhoods beginning to stabilize. We see downtown growing. But here’s the thing: We still have a long way to go in order to have the growth that we need here.”
Perkins promoted creating “neighborhood quarterbacks” who would partner with private organizations to ensure developments are completed. Perkins said students perform better when they’re not afraid, and families are more likely to stay in the city if neighborhoods are safe.
Rebuild the middle class
Candidates have been asked to explain what economic policies they would use to help working families own homes, grow savings and thrive.
Most have discussed strategies to build the middle class. A recent Detroit Future City report found that only a quarter of the city’s households are middle class, average incomes remain low and poverty is declining but remains over 40% in some neighborhoods.
Durhal, a father to two young children, said Detroit should be a city for families. He wants to make child care more accessible and affordable for working parents. Durhal also talked about the need to develop a trained workforce, starting in K-12 schools.
“We’re not going to build the workforce in the future for folks to be here if we don’t address education,” Durhal said. “People move to neighborhoods with good-paying jobs because it’s safe and because of schools. When you look around the city of Detroit right now, all you see is the skeleton of that work. You see abandoned school buildings adjacent to our neighborhoods that add to the degradation and tears down the mental mindset of our children who have to walk past that every single day.”
Durhal noted his sponsorship of a bill during his time as a state representative that would prohibit employers from asking job applicants if they were convicted of a felony or misdemeanor. It wasn’t passed, but former Gov. Rick Snyder later banned criminal history reviews on state job applications.
Several candidates focused on cutting red tape to make it easier for residents to start businesses. Durhal proposed a unified permitting and inspection system to streamline the process. Jenkins wants to reduce city bureaucracy, cutting the barriers to opening a business “from 77 steps to 7.”
Sheffield teased a “Destination Detroit” economic plan to build up the middle class. She said it will include measures to attract high-growth industries and invest in workforce development so residents can get those jobs. Sheffield wants to build more workforce training centers throughout the city.
Sheffield wants to create an Office of Small Business Affairs to help entrepreneurs navigate issues with zoning, permitting and other city regulations, and connect businesses to financial aid. Fewer than 2% of commercial loans in Detroit go to Black-owned businesses, she said. According to the Federal Reserve, 19% of all businesses in Detroit are Black-owned.
Perkins said the city doesn’t directly create jobs but must foster an environment where they’re created. He wants a full audit of the city’s resources and spending to “find where all the bodies are.” Craig also supports a “forensic audit” of the city’s spending.
Durhal, who chairs the council’s Budget Finance and Audit Committee, said that’s unnecessary.
“You should already know what the budget is now; you shouldn’t have to wait until day one,” Durhal said.
Kinloch said he’s focused on bridging wealth gaps between Detroiters and suburban neighbors whose incomes are far higher.
“We fuel our future by taking advantage of AI technology, mobility and transportation and the medical health industry,” Kinloch said at the AFL-CIO forum.
Haashiiim said Detroit needs an “economic reinvention,” as the city has been too reliant on auto-related industries that are downsizing. He said corporations “are getting rich off city assets and not being good corporate citizens.”
He said Detroiters lack empowerment when it comes to their finances, education and political influence. Haashiim proposed creating a universal basic income program to provide residents with regular payments.
No school takeover, but strong partnership wanted
Education, much like poverty, is a foundational issue that candidates say must be prioritized by the next mayor. Candidates stopped short of supporting a city takeover of the Detroit Public Schools Community District but said the mayor should have more involvement with public schools and charters in the city.
Craig said leaders of “broken” schools haven’t been held accountable for failing students, but didn’t explain how. Craig said he would use his “bully pulpit” as mayor to push for changes and proposed a middle school boot camp.
“By the time a child is in third grade, they should be able to read,” Craig said, noting that he learned when running for governor that only 8% of Detroit students could read by third grade. Third-grade reading proficiency was 11.7% for the 2023-2024 school year.
“You should be angry about that,” Craig said. “As chief of police, if I performed like that superintendent did in my first year, I would have been fired.”
Jenkins said the mayor and the DPSCD superintendent “should have each other on speed dial,” to collaborate and attract families to the city. Jenkins said there needs to be more safe spaces for children between 3 and 8 p.m., which she called “the most dangerous times of the day for kids.” She also wants to open more community centers and after-school programs.
Jenkins also proposed giving teachers homes through the Detroit Land Bank Authority to incentivize them to live in the city.
“You come here, you live here, you teach our kids for a certain amount of time, you get a house,” Jenkins said. “Another thing I would do is make sure we are addressing what I’ve been talking about for years, which is the social determinants to education. Right now, there are about 3,000 kids in DPSCD who are homeless.”
Sheffield pitched a mayor’s liaison in the schools and a coalition between the city, Detroit public schools and charter schools to address education issues. Sheffield wants to expand the Detroit Promise scholarship program to address social issues that contribute to chronic absenteeism.
“We don’t have to go back to the debate of who should control the school system,” Sheffield said. “The mayor definitely has influence. I can assure you, under my administration, there will be accountability, communication and collaboration.”
Barlow said he would take action to address student homelessness, saying there are thousands of unhoused children in Detroit.
Perkins said public safety and education are intertwined, as unsafe routes to school harm academic performance. Perkins said he would interact directly with the superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District to collaborate on issues.
“Great schools make great neighborhoods, which makes a great city,” Perkins said. “I intend to be as mayor, not a liaison to the superintendent, but I intend to interact with him directly.”
Kinloch said, under his leadership, Triumph Church provided children with 10,000 laptops during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kinloch said he has the receipts from serving young people over the last 27 years and blamed poor leadership for failing to put improvements in place.
“We already know that we need to stop using our children as guinea pigs on a system that we know needs improvement,” Kinloch said.