Happy New Year, Michigan Chronicle readers.
I wanted to write to you directly to thank you for an awesome year covering our community and preview what’s to come this year from my byline.
It’s a new era in Detroit city government.
I’ll be tracking the turnover — how many familiar faces make it past the transition from Mayor Mike Duggan to the Mayor Mary Sheffield. There’s some overlap in key figures, such as with the city’s communication department, where John Roach and Rose Love remain.
Love has worked for the city since the late 80s under Mayor Coleman Young, and Roach served as Duggan’s top spokesperson and the man reporters looking for comment from the city or mayor go to first.
His presence could benefit Sheffield as the mostly white press corps shifts from covering the moderate Democrat turned independent candidate for governor, Duggan, to a 38-year-old Black woman, Sheffield.
Having spent 12 years listening to public commenters at city council, Sheffield is no stranger to scrutiny. But how she navigates blowback if certain policy isn’t possible — like lofty suggestions from the city’s reparations task force — or inherited political scandals (such as the city’s ongoing dirt scandal) will be interesting to watch as mayor.
That dynamic affects Detroit’s image in a statewide and national perspective. Duggan’s positive relationships with state Republican leaders and officials from President Donald Trump’s administration perhaps shielded Detroit from the ire other Black city’s felt and are feeling again now. Duggan has credited what he said was a productive first Trump term in Detroit to his relationship with former HUD secretary Ben Carson, who is from Detroit.
Whether Sheffield is able to make similar relationships to shield Detroit from Trump’s wrath is unknown, however, she hasn’t shied away from reaching across the aisle.
Sheffield invited Trump HUD secretary Scott Turner to one of her transition team meetings at Marygrove Conservancy last month. Sheffield told the Detroit News she hopes it is the start of a dialogue with the Trump administration official.
“I think she has a great vision … what I saw in her is she cares about the people of Detroit,” Turner, a former NFL player and Texas Republican Congressman, told reporters, the News reported. “She’s a pioneer of sorts, and so we look forward to working with her for the people of Detroit.”
The meeting happened without mention of the fear Democratic state and county officials are carrying about potential cuts to social safety net programs and housing vouchers.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined 18 other state attorneys and two governors in a November federal lawsuit challenging new HUD policy they say threatens thousands of formerly homeless people and families with eviction.
How Sheffield will oppose the Trump administration is an open question heading into the year where it’s still unknown whether she could disappoint Michigan Democrats by siding with independent gubernatorial candidate Duggan later this year over one of the Democratic candidates she has less experience working with.
As of Jan. 1, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is the Democratic front runner for to be the party’s nominee, with Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and Chris Swanson behind her.
Republican candidates like U.S. Rep. John James, former state Rep. Tom Leonard and Sen. Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt have history in their favor — it’s been more than four decades since a Democrat has won three consecutive terms for Michigan governor.
It’s unclear how Michigan voters will react to Duggan, who promises to leave the “us. vs. them” style of party politics in the past — the strategy he claims changed Detroit politics.
Polling from a firm Duggan’s campaign tapped, Schoen Cooperman Research, showed he is sitting at 26% in third place behind Benson (30%) and James (29%), but insiders I’ve spoken to tell me they’re still reluctant to trust the pollster they say is viewed as favorable for moderates like Duggan.
If Duggan can compete to make the governor’s race a three way race after the August primary, it will garner the eyes of the country.
The race for the state’s consequential U.S. Senate seat will too.
That race features three Democrats with large bank accounts (U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, State Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Abdul-El Sayed) that all represent a different type of member of a party searching for identity in the aftermath of Vice President Kamala Harris’ somewhat shocking loss to Trump.
Those last four words are surprising to me, someone who could feel Trump’s comeback in 2024 reach its pinnacle months before the election when he was nearly assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
I will never forget watching the video of Trump go down while sitting on a blanket at Herbert Von King Park in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. I was there for a rap music festival featuring the likes of, MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt and Baby Osama.
The social media reaction and news reports following the assassination attempt indicated to me that Trump would be the next president.
“He just won the election,” I said out loud in my immediate reaction after watching the C-SPAN clip of Trump getting grazed by a bullet near his ear. That feeling didn’t escape even after President Joe Biden dropped out to excite younger Democrats and women by running Harris for president instead.
I wasn’t the only one with the feeling, but Democrats campaigned with a confidence in 2024 that I do not feel now when I talk to them behind the scenes. Harris’ loss was shocking to the people I spoke to; campaign officials, donors, some journalists and editors.
As Democrats in Detroit and across the state prepare for an important fall midterm election, I begin 2026 wondering what shocking election result Michigan may be in for next.
Whether it be a surprise Senate win from a Michigan GOP that is winless in that race since 1992; a historic upset in the governor’s race from an independent; or perhaps a surprise Democratic primary result between two Detroiters.
Whatever the surprise may be, I look forward to reporting on candidates and elected officials who make up the city, our region and this state for Michigan Chronicle.
Special thanks to Jeremy Allen, Ebony JJ Curry and Hiram Jackson for championing my journalism as this historic newspaper celebrates its 90th year.
— Sam Robinson