Michigan election 2023: Key races to watch in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb counties

Election Day 2023 is Tuesday, Nov. 7. Voters across metro Detroit will soon head to the polls with key city council and mayoral races hanging in the balance.

Here are the biggest races to watch, county by county. Come back to freep.com on Tuesday for live election coverage and results.

Wayne County election races 2023

Grosse Pointe Park: Incumbent Mayor Michelle Hodges faces a challenge from City Councilwoman Christine Gallagher. Hodges was elected to the council in 2019 and elected mayor in 2021. She is the founding CEO of the Belle Isle Conservancy, having run that nonprofit since 2012. She starts a new job on Nov. 13, becoming CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County. Gallagher is a telecommunications solution consultant. She has served on the city council since 2021. A full-time city manager oversees operations while the part-time mayor chairs a seven-seat city council. Six candidates are vying for three council seats. One candidate is an appointed incumbent, so Tuesday’s election will bring at least two newcomers to the council.

Inkster: Voters will decide whether to reelect Mayor Patrick Wimberly, who faces a federal bribery charge. His challenger is defense attorney Byron Nolen, who was the city’s mayor 2015-2019. Wimberly, a former City Council member and marijuana entrepreneur, was indicted on Oct. 2 in a federal corruption case, accused of pocketing $50,000 in bribes from a person seeking a political favor. Wimberly is free on a $10,000 bond. If convicted, he faces up to a decade in prison and a $250,000 fine. Inkster’s mayor serves full-time with a salary of $105,000.

Livonia: Incumbent Mayor Maureen Miller Brosnan is being challenged by Councilwoman Kathleen McIntyre for the full-time mayor’s job. Brosnan was elected in 2019 and previously served on the city council. She is the former interim CEO of Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan. She chairs the board of Trinity Health – Livonia, formerly St. Mary Mercy Hospital. McIntyre, in her second term on the city council, is a marketing and communications consultant for an accounting firm. The mayor’s job pays $137,300 annually. In city council races, six candidates are vying for four seats. Only two candidates are incumbents, so the next council will have at least two newcomers.

Westland: Interim Westland Mayor Mike Londeau and state Rep. Kevin Coleman are facing off to succeed former mayor Bill Wild, who’d helmed the city for 16 years. After Wild stepped down on Jan. 17, Londeau was appointed interim mayor by a 5-2 vote of the city council, on which he’d served for six years, most recently as mayor pro tem. Coleman, in his third term as a state representative, lost to Wild in 2017. If Coleman wins, he’d take office immediately, slicing the Democrats’ majority in the state House to 55-54. Coleman has said, if elected, he’d call for a special election next year to fill his seat. The winner will fill the two years left in Wild’s term. Westland’s mayor works full-time. The annual salary is $121,574.

Oakland County election races 2023

Voters in Rochester, Birmingham and Keego Harbor will decide questions about recreational marijuana. Three cities – Berkley, Ferndale and Madison Heights – could elect their first Black members to city councils.

Berkley: The race for Berkley City Council isn’t the most crowded around; Auburn Hills has nine people seeking four seats. But there’s added interest because an African-American candidate, Clarence Black, running in Berkley, which is 88% white and only 7% Black or multi-racial, according to SEMCOG. Black is one of four candidates running for three seats, and his opponents are all incumbents although one – Michael Dooley – gained his seat last year by appointment to fill a vacancy. Mayor Bridget Dean is running unopposed.

Clawson: Paula Millan, in her first term as mayor, is being challenged by former Clawson school board president Andrea Hodges. Down ballot, there are five candidates including two incumbents seeking two seats on the city council.

Ferndale: With longtime mayor and, before that, councilmember Melanie Piana stepping down, Ferndale voters will choose between Councilmember Raylon Leaks-May, a former member of the Ferndale school board, and newcomer Sean Hurley. Leaks-May, if elected, would be Ferndale’s first African-American mayor in a city that is 82% white and 11% Black or multi-racial, according to SEMCOG. In Ferndale’s city council race, three candidates are running for two open seats because Leaks-May is running for mayor and Councilwoman Kat Bruner James chose not to seek reelection. So, a new mayor will join two newcomers on the five-person city council.

Madison Heights: Mayor Roslyn Grafstein is running unopposed, but five candidates are seeking three seats on the city council. Four of those five already serve on the city council, so at least one will lose a seat, and perhaps two will. Only one of those already serving, Emily Rohrbach, is an elected incumbent. The other three lost in the 2021 election, but they gained their seats through a city charter process in late 2021 and early 2022 that filled three vacancies, created in quick succession when one councilmember resigned and two others died of COVID-19 illnesses. Two of those who filled vacancies are Black and, if elected, they could become the first African Americans elected to the city council. Madison Heights is 76% white and 13 Black or multicultural, according to SEMCOG.

Novi: Voters will pick their first new mayor since 2011 when they elected Bob Gatt, who declined to run for a seventh term. City Councilman Justin Fischer, who was elected in 2019 and who also served on the council from 2009 to 2014, is vying with Aaron Martinez,  a lawyer who has served as a legislative assistant in Lansing. Residents also will elect three city council members from a field of six candidates including two incumbents and four newcomers.

Royal Oak: Michael Fournier, who has been mayor since 2016 and on the city commission since 2011, is being challenged for the top job by Trish Oliver, a communications consultant and board member of the Royal Oak Historical Society. In the race for other seats on the city commission, six candidates are seeking three seats, which are open following the recent death on Aug. 22 of longtime commission member Patricia Paruch and the decision by Commissioner Kyle DuBuc not to run again. Oliver has endorsed a slate of three candidates: Peter Ferenczy, Kathie Grant, and Wade Sutton, all newcomers; Fournier supports incumbent Councilwoman Monica Hunt and newcomers Rebecca Cheezum and Amanda Herzog.

Troy: Mayor Ethan Baker is running unopposed but seven candidates are vying for three seats on the city council. Two incumbents are running while City Councilwoman Edna Abrahim declined to seek re-election, creating one open seat in the race for three council positions.

Macomb County election races 2023

Eastpointe: When Mayor Monique Owens, facing a criminal charge, finished third in the August primary election, that put two newcomers into Tuesday’s mayoral contest. Former city councilman Michael Klinefelt, a Wayne County assistant prosecutor, drew 57% of the primary vote. Retired educator Mary Hall-Rayford, a member of the Eastpointe school board, received 17%. Hall-Rayford is one of four residents who filed a federal lawsuit last year against Owens and the city, claiming that their First Amendment rights had been infringed when Mayor Owens hushed them at city meetings. Owens made history as the city’s first Black mayor, and Hall-Rayford could become its second. Klinefelt would make history as the city’s first openly gay mayor. Six candidates, but just one incumbent, are seeking two seats on the city council.

Warren: Residents will see a major shift in leadership following this election. With longtime Mayor Jim Fouts term-limited out of office, although he is appealing that decision in federal court, State Rep. Lori Stone is running for mayor against the city’s human resources director George Dimas, who was endorsed by Fouts. If Stone wins, she’d be sworn in soon after election day, immediately slicing the Democrats’ majority in the state House to 55-54. Filling her House seat would require a special election at some unspecified future date, leaving her seat empty in the interim. Stone is campaigning on a slate with Macomb County Commissioner Mai Xiong, who is hoping to oust City Clerk Sonja Buffa; and with incumbent Councilwoman Angela Rogensues, who is vying with three other candidates, all newcomers, for the two at-large seats on the seven-member city council. For each of the five other seats, Warren elects councilmembers by district. In District 1, incumbent Ron Papandrea chose not to run, so two newcomers are squaring off. For the remaining four districts, four incumbents sought reelection and all but one, Eddie Kabacinski in District 5, advanced to the general election. So, in Districts 2 through 4, incumbents have challengers. In District 5, two newcomers are vying for the seat. Council President Patrick Green, who had been an at-large member, was prevented by term limits from running again. Green ran unsuccessfully in the mayoral primary, finishing third with 237 votes (less than 2%) behind Stone. Macomb County Commissioner Michelle Nard, who finished fourth in the August mayoral primary, is a write-in mayoral candidate.

Contact the editor: Mstruman@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan election 2023: Key races to watch in metro Detroit