A poll commissioned by the business and civic organization Detroit Renaissance found that the vast majority of Detroit's residents are ready for change – on both the national and local levels. Among other things, most want a new mayor.
Among the findings:
The vast majority – 83.5 percent – believe the nation is on the wrong track. Eighty percent believe the City of Detroit is on the wrong track. Fifty-eight percent of voters believe that things will be better in Detroit one year from now. Only 12.3 percent believe things will get worse and 22.3 percent believe things will stay the same.
“Jobs” was cited as the top issue among 33.8 percent of Detroit voters. Crime and Drugs ranked second at 25.2 percent. Education was third at 19.8 percent; government corruption came in fourth at 11.8 percent; 8.3 percent said the lack of government services was their top concern.
Only 21.3 percent Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick favorably, while 73.7 percent views him unfavorably.
Most – 69.3 percent – rank Kilpatrick’s job performance as fair or poor – with 45.5 percent ranking his performance as poor. Also: 69.3 percent would definitely vote to replace Kilpatrick as mayor. Only 9.0 percent would vote to re-elect Kilpatrick.
Most would rather not wait till the election to see Kilpatrick replaced: 68.7 percent believe he should resign from office. Only 28.8 percent believe Kilpatrick should remain in office.
Even among the 28.8 percent who believe he should remain in office, 47.3 percent believe he should not run for re-election.
A big majority – 72 percent – believe Detroit will be better off if someone else is mayor.
Detroiters also have a strongly negative view of Detroit City Council: 85.2 percent of Detroit voters rate the performance of the Detroit City Council as fair or poor – 46.7 percent rate their performance “poor”. Even Mayor Kilpatrick has a higher job approval ranking.
When voters were presented with the idea of electing City Council members by districts, by a margin of 75.3 percent-16.3 percent voters support the change in the city’s charter. 56.8 percent of voters strongly support the change while only 10.2 percent strongly oppose the change.
Detroiters think the school board does an even worse job than city council: 89.5 percent of voters give the board a fair or poor performance rating, while 6.5 percent give it an excellent or good rating.
In a head to head ballot test between Dave Bing and Kwame Kilpatrick, Bing holds a 77.5 percent-15.0 percent lead. In multi-candidate ballot tests, Bing holds on to his commanding lead even in a four-way race.
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