Detroit city clerk Janice Winfrey dominates primary election, will face Denzel McCampbell
Clara HendricksonLongtime Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey will sail to the November election to decide the city's next chief election officer following a strong performance during Tuesday's primary.
She will face off against Denzel McCampbell.
The race follows an unprecedented flood of misinformation about the last presidential election that placed Detroit in the national spotlight.
Winfrey secured 70.4% of the vote while McCampbell won 15.3%, unofficial primary election results show.
Turnout in Tuesday's primary was 14.3%. That marks an increase from the city's previous municipal primary in 2017 saw 13.9% turnout.
Winfrey has served as clerk for four consecutive terms, and hopes her record running dozens of elections in the state's largest city will motivate voters to back her reelection.
McCampbell, who serves as the communications director for Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and is a member of Detroit's charter revision commission, has emphasized his previous work as a voting rights activist during his campaign. He has argued that the city needs changes to how elections are administered and a clerk who can boost civic engagement.
Both Winfrey and McCampbell have spoken out against Republican efforts to push through major changes to voting in Michigan. They have characterized bills pushed by state Republican lawmakers that would enact new voter ID requirements and prohibit prepaid postage on absentee ballot return envelopes as a nefarious attempt to suppress the vote.
Meanwhile both candidates have vowed to improve Detroit's anemic voter turnout.
Primary challengers Beverly Kindle-Walker and Michael Ri'chard lagged in the vote. Kindle-Walker received 10.2% of the votes counted so far while Ri'chard received 3.5%.
During their campaigns, Kindle-Walker and Ri'chard had focused on Winfrey's performance, which came under increased scrutiny in 2020 when many of the city's precincts recorded unexplained discrepancies between the number of ballots counted and the number of ballots recorded as cast in the poll books.
Out of balance precincts in the city prompted protests outside Winfrey's home and the Wayne County Board of Canvassers to request state support for the city for the presidential election.
More:Winfrey describes threats in wake of 2020 election to congressional panel
More:On The Line: Trump, a clerk's race and a national spotlight on Detroit
Tuesday's election was the first one since the Nov. 3 election in which a chaotic scene unfolded at Detroit's TCF Center where election workers counted ballots cast by the city's voters.
When ex-President Trump's election night lead in Michigan began to fade the next day as more absentee ballots were counted, hundreds of supporters of the former president descended on TCF to demand that Detroit election workers stop counting ballots.
Trump improved upon his 2016 performance in the city, but still lost to President Joe Biden by more than 228,000 votes and lost statewide by more than 154,000 votes.
Following the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his allies targeted Detroit with false allegations of voter fraud to advance the conspiracy that the election was stolen.
Winfrey recently told a congressional panel that she and her staff were threatened and harassed following Trump's ceaseless claims that the election was rife with fraud in the wake of the election.
But Winfrey told the Free Press earlier that the attacks did not deter her from seeking a fifth term.
"It's important that I stay the course to get us through these trying times as election administrators and to be able to fight the good fight against some of these initiatives that are coming into play as it relates to elections and the attempt to suppress the vote," she said.
McCampbell, meanwhile, has said that the prospect of continued efforts to sow doubt in the legitimacy of future elections necessitate a change.
"Detroit has been in the headlines about the way we administer our elections," he told the Free Press at the outset of his campaign. "It doesn't have to be that way."
In addition to increasing voter access, McCampbell has said transforming civic engagement in Detroit would be a priority if elected. He has pitched launching a civic education corps with members based in communities across the city aimed at strengthening the relationship between residents and their government.
The Wayne County Board of Canvassers will meet Wednesday to commence the canvass of Tuesday's primary. The county canvassers have two weeks to review and certify the election returns.
Clara Hendrickson fact-checks Michigan issues and politics as a corps member with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support her work at bit.ly/freepRFA. Contact her at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen.