Incumbent Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick suddenly pulled ahead over challenger Freman Hendrix on the last stretch of Detroit's Decision 2005.

With 100 percent reporting, Kilpatrick had 117,354, or 53 percent of the vote, and Hendrix had 103,446 votes, or 47 percent. The change was reported after Hendrix showed a 10-point lead in early counting.

Kilpatrick, in somewhat of a victory speech before all the precincts were counted, promised Detroiters there would be changes and that the city and those who voted for him would be proud.

In the tight race, Kilpatrick was fighting to avoid becoming the first Detroit mayor since 1961 to be defeated for re-election.

Hendrix did not speak to the crowd after the tide turned early Wednesday and Local 4 reported he had left his campaign headquarters at the State Theatre, where he and his political supporters had gathered for the evening.

Shortly after midnight, Hendrix told Local 4 the "election is far from over." Meanwhile, Kilpatrick rallied his supporters, who were gathered at the Renaissance Center along the Detroit River. He said he was optimistic about the turnout and his prospects as votes were being counted.

"Everybody's got a right to vote today," Kilpatrick told the cheering crowd. "And when that vote comes in, I know what you're going to see. You're going to see: `Kilpatrick, four more years."'

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Other Races Of Interest

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A Local 4 exit poll showed Freman Hendrix leading incumbent Kwame Kilpatrick based on a telephone poll of people who said they voted.

The poll, by East Lansing-based Mitchell Research and Communications Inc. for WDIV and The Detroit News, showed Hendrix with 56 percent and Kilpatrick with 44 percent.

That survey interviewed 750 people by about 8:30 p.m. EST and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Four years after becoming one of the city's youngest mayors, Kilpatrick found himself asking voters for forgiveness -- and another chance -- after a scandal-plagued first term. Still, he sees himself at the helm of a city dealing with its problems and heading in the right direction.

Some city services have improved under Kilpatrick, who touts getting the grass cut in parks and plowing snow from streets among his administration's successes. New homes and downtown construction speak to revitalization efforts, but blight pervades many neighborhoods.

Kilpatrick, 35, is a lawyer and former schoolteacher who played football in college and has a mother in Congress. He swiftly rose through the state House of Representatives to the mayor's office, but had a challenging first term.

Kilpatrick has implied that the media is out to get him with scrutiny that included his use of a city credit card on expensive out-of- town travel and a city lease of a luxury sport utility vehicle for his family. And he has tried to shake the label of "hip-hop mayor," removing his trademark diamond earring.

Hendrix, 55, is a career bureaucrat who earned a business degree from Eastern Michigan University on the GI Bill after a four-year stint in the Navy. After leaving former Mayor Dennis Archer's administration, he worked at a Detroit-based consulting firm until stepping down in 2004 to pursue his mayoral bid.

FBI Probe Into Absentee Ballots

Late Tuesday, the U.S. attorney's office on behalf of the FBI requested that the city preserve at least 42,000 absentee ballots, applications and ballot envelopes so the agency could investigate allegations of wrongdoing.

The FBI said it is investigating claims that the names of dead people were used to cast absentee ballots, that ballots were sent out improperly and that there was improper assistance given by the city clerk's staff to people incapable of voting.

In addition to budget problems, Detroit faces a continuing population decline that started a half-century ago. It now has just more than 900,000 residents, compared with 1.8 million in 1950, and earlier this year was listed as the nation's most impoverished big city.