Poll: Here’s who leads Detroit mayoral race 1 month before general election

DETROIT – Detroit voters were asked during a recent poll who they would vote for in the mayoral race in the 2025 general election.

Here’s the exact wording of the question, which was asked over the phone: If the election for mayor of Detroit was held today, would you vote for Mary Sheffield or Solomon Kinloch Jr. to be the next mayor of Detroit?

Participants were then asked: Would that be definitely vote for Sheffield/Kinloch or probably vote for Sheffield/Kinloch?

Here are the results:

• Definitely Kinloch -- 9.5%
• Probably Kinloch -- 4.6%
• Definitely Sheffield -- 52.2%
• Probably Sheffield -- 12.7%
• Other -- 0.6%
• Don’t know/Refused -- 20.4%

Poll methodology

WDIV and the Detroit News commissioned a survey of likely November 2025 general election voters within the city of Detroit. The poll was conducted by The Glengariff Group, Inc.

It was a 500-sample, live-operator telephone survey conducted from October 16-18, 2025.

The margin of error is +/- 4.4%, and there is a 95% level of confidence.

Of the respondents, 10.3% were called via landline telephone, and 89.7% were called on a cellphone.