Detroit Residents Vote in Mayoral Primary

But will winner have any power?

Mike Duggan accomplished something in Detroit's mayoral primary that may never have been done before: He won as a write-in.

By early Wednesday morning, with most of the city's 614 precincts reporting, Duggan and popular Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon had clear leads over the rest of the field in the race to lead the largest U.S. city in history to file for bankruptcy. Napoleon managed to win about 30 percent of the vote, while Duggan won around 47 percent of the vote. The 14 other candidates who were knocked out of the field won about 16 percent of the vote, meaning Duggan and Napoleon will be competing for those votes in the Nov. 5 general election.

While Detroit is at a pivotal turning point, the new mayor will have little power. Like current Mayor Dave Bing, Detroit's new mayor will inherit a city in fiscal ruin. Bing, whose role was supplanted in March when the state hired an emergency mayor over Detroit's finances, chose not to seek re-election to a second term.