A lot has changed since 1993, when Sharon McPhail lost to former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Dennis Archer, but one thing hasn't: A woman has yet to lead Michigan's largest city.
That could change as Detroit voters head to the polls Tuesday to elect a new mayor for the first time in more than a decade. They'll have a historic choice either way: electing the city's first female mayor in City Council President Mary Sheffield or electing an active church pastor new to politics, the Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr.
The significance of possibly becoming Detroit's first female mayor doesn't appear to be lost on Sheffield or her supporters. When she won the August primary with more than 50% of the vote, she was greeted by chants of "first female mayor." Even her grandmother noted that her grandchild could become the city's first female mayor as they headed to the polls to vote in early August.
"75 Mayors," reads a message accompanying a video on Sheffield's campaign Facebook page in September. "None of them looked like me. We have the opportunity to make history by electing the first Black woman to serve as Mayor in Detroit’s history."
More than three decades after McPhail's loss to Archer, the political landscape has changed significantly for women, with female lawmakers now found in elected offices at every level of government, from city councils to the U.S. Senate, as well as appointed posts like the U.S. Supreme Court. Michigan made history in 2018 when women were elected to hold the state's top three statewide offices simultaneously: governor, attorney general and secretary of state.
But some political experts said challenges remain for female candidates, who they said are often judged by different standards than male candidates. Women tend to face scrutiny for their personalities and perceived "likeability" that their male candidate counterparts may not, in addition to their qualifications, said Jean Sinzdak, the associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics, part of the Rutgers University-New Brunswick Eagleton Institute of Politics.
"With male candidates, (voters) just need to know they'll do the job. But for women candidates, they tend to want to know that they can do the job, but also that they like them, which is unfair," Sinzdak said.
Mario Morrow, a Southfield-based political consultant who closely follows Detroit politics, said he believes Sheffield — currently in her third term on City Council — has by now overcome the sexism she might have faced as a candidate by convincing voters of her qualifications and experience.
"She can talk the talk and walk the walk because she's been in office for so long ... and she has gotten to the point where people aren't looking at her as a woman candidate," Morrow said.
An Oct. 16-18 Detroit News-WDIV-TV (Channel 4) poll found Sheffield with a commanding lead, getting the support of about 65% of 500 likely Detroit voters compared to Kinloch's 14% and another 20% who said they remain undecided. The survey had a margin of error of plus-minus 4.4 percentage points.
Sheffield may also have benefited from the mayor's race coming so closely on the heels of last year's presidential election, in which former Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly lost the popular vote with just over 48%, Morrow said. But the Democratic nominee won in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit with about 90% of the votes cast, compared with now-President Donald Trump's 8%. Female voters, especially Black women, disappointed about Harris' loss may have channeled their hope toward Sheffield, Morrow said.
"Political campaigning and messaging now for women has been more effective than it has ever been, and Mary Sheffield came on the heels of Kamala Harris running for president — in a six-month time frame — and doing extremely well," Morrow said.
But not all experts agreed with that assessment. Despite the increasing prospects for women in politics, female candidates still face scrutiny that their male counterparts may not, experts said, from how they conduct themselves to their roles as mothers.
Pamela Aronson, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan Dearborn, said factors in the political climate since the 2024 election cycle, such as attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and overt critiques of women in elected office, have also seemingly created uncertainty for the evolution of the political landscape for women candidates.
"Since 2024, we've seen this disruption of where we maybe thought we were going with women in politics for several years before that," said Aronson, the author of "Gender Revolution: How Electoral Politics and #MeToo are Reshaping Everyday Life."
"And I'm just not really sure how voters are going to respond to sort of traditional attacks on women candidates."
'I Am Every Woman'
McPhail told attorney Mike Morse in a 2020 "Open Mike" podcast that she was working in a group formed to back steel industry executive and former Detroit Pistons star Dave Bing for mayor in 1993. But when he decided against running, McPhail said Bing urged her to run instead because she had done so much of the campaign work. She said she hadn't thought about running for mayor before.
McPhail, a former city lawyer, advanced out of a crowded primary election field of more than 20 candidates, including then-U.S. Rep. John Conyers. She lost to Archer 57%-43% in the race to replace Mayor Coleman Young, who stepped down after five terms in office. Voting data at the time showed McPhail beat Archer in more predominantly Black districts, or precincts, while Archer won in precincts with more white voters.
Leading up to the general election, at a debate, McPhail described the scrutiny she faced when she told people she was running for mayor.
"When I started running for mayor, everybody said, 'Sharon who? She can't win. She doesn't have any money. She can't win the primary.' Well, I'll tell you," said McPhail, according to a Detroit News story from Nov. 4, 1993. "I am every woman."
After the loss, McPhail eventually ran and got elected to City Council, serving from 2003-06. She made another bid for mayor in 2005, but Archer's former deputy mayor, Freman Hendrix, got the most votes in the primary election, while Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick finished second, and Hendrix lost to Kilpatrick in the general election.
McPhail said she ran because she wanted to raise issues and arguments that no one else would at debates, but she had no illusions about winning.
"I didn't have any money. I knew I wasn't going to win," she told Morse.
McPhail couldn't be reached for comment.
Unlike McPhail, Sheffield hasn't had trouble raising money. In the latest campaign finance filings, Sheffield outraised Kinloch $1.2 million to $138,000.
She had already made history by becoming the youngest person ever elected to the Detroit City Council in 2013 at age 26.
Aronson noted, though, that Sheffield has not seemed to integrate her gender heavily into her mayoral campaign.
She also cautioned that it's difficult to parse its significance from other factors that could influence her success, such as the visibility from her long City Council career and the Sheffield family's name recognition in Detroit. Sheffield's father is the Rev. Horace Sheffield III, a longtime community organizer and civil rights leader, and her grandfather was Horace Sheffield Jr., a legendary union activist and founder of the Detroit Association of Black Organizations.
Kinloch has stuck to the traditional strategy of an underdog — including in the one and only general election debate — by arguing Sheffield hasn't done enough during her three terms on council to be mayor, said Aaron Kall, University of Michigan's director of debate.
Though Detroit has never had a woman as mayor, a few of Detroit's biggest suburbs are led by women, including Lori Stone, mayor of Warren, the state's third-largest city, and Maureen Miller Brosnan, mayor of Livonia. Michigan's second-most populous city, Grand Rapids, also has had a female mayor.
Former U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence served as Southfield's mayor from 2001-2015, while Deidre Waterman was Pontiac's mayor for years. Both were their city's first Black female mayors.
Of the 100 most populated cities in the U.S., the Center for American Women and Politics' Sinzdak said 37 currently have female mayors. Eight of the 100 most populous cities have Black women as mayors, up from one in 2014, according to a report by the Center for American Women and Politics. The cities include Los Angeles; Philadelphia; New Orleans; Oakland, California; Charlotte, North Carolina; Washington, D.C.; North Las Vegas, Nevada; and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Since 2014, 18 Black women have served as mayors of the country's most populated cities.
But Sinzdak cautioned that the representation of women in local offices, namely city council seats and mayoral offices, appears to have plateaued since the center began gathering data on municipal offices in the last four to five years. Seven in 10 local elected offices are still held by men, she said.
"It goes to show that there's a lot of progress that needs to happen in terms of women's representation in local office overall," Sinzdak said.
Is She Likeable?
Aronson didn't have a specific opinion on whether perceptions about Sheffield's personality have influenced her success. But she said women face more pressure than men to be seen as both tough enough to be strong leaders, but also to be "nice," and the most successful women candidates have navigated that standard well.
"It's almost like it's like you have to be the perfect candidate to be all things to everybody, but especially in a gendered way," Aronson said.
Mayor Mike Duggan endorsed Sheffield in August after she won the primary. Aronson noted Duggan and Sheffield have stayed away from personal attacks through the years, even during policy disagreements. The two have diverged on issues including tax assessments, demolitions and expanding the city's use of the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system.
"Mayor Duggan and I never fell into the trap of leading with rhetoric," Sheffield said during an event announcing Duggan's endorsement. "Instead, we rolled up our sleeves, and we found real solutions to the issues that matter most to our residents, whether it was strengthening our neighborhoods, advancing affordable housing or building more safe and vibrant neighborhoods."
Kinloch responded by noting that "Duggan doesn't get the right to decide his successor." He attacked Sheffield for failing to do enough to address the city's problems.
"After 12 years on the Detroit City Council — and four more as Council President — if you haven’t fixed it by now, you’re not going to," Kinloch said in a statement at the time. "...Detroit needs fresh leadership, with the courage to do what career politicians couldn’t."
Aronson pointed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was first elected in 2018, as an example of a female candidate who seemed to successfully define herself as a tough, capable but likable leader in a way that appealed to voters. Trump's first term also provided a ripe backdrop for governors to fashion themselves as willing to fight his policies, she said.
"Let's just take the most visible one prior to that. Hillary Clinton in 2016 was really raked over the coals for being assertive ... and a lot of the critiques that she was subjected to as a woman candidate," Aronson said. "And so I think there are certain things that have that had shifted."
Other Female Leaders
Though Stone, Warren's mayor, is the first woman elected to lead the Macomb County suburb of more than 135,000 people, she prefers to focus on having used her knowledge and experience to build voters' trust in her, rather than dwelling on how her gender may have influenced how people see her.
After her second State of the City address earlier this month, Stone said she thinks of herself as just happening to be the first woman elected as Warren's mayor, rather than having been elected because she's a woman.
"I've never been a male mayor, so I don't know how to compare it," she said in an interview.
"Sometimes you have to remind people of who you are, what you bring to the table in order to continue to get the respect of what you got you here in the first place."
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