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Mr. Bing, who founded a group of auto-supply companies after playing for the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association, wants to reduce spending at a time when the city's tax base is shrinking rapidly. He is staring down a $300 million budget deficit and hoping to balance the budget, in part, by gaining concessions from the city's unions.

The challenger is Democrat Tom Barrow, an accountant who lost an August runoff election to Mr. Bing by a big margin and has a 1994 conviction for bank fraud and filing false tax returns on his record.

Mr. Barrow has the support of the city's unions, which largely abandoned Mr. Bing after his attempts to get savings from them. Mr. Barrow has gained some traction by painting Mr. Bing as an outsider who is overwhelmed by the myriad of issues the city faces. Mr. Bing lived in the suburbs until he ran for mayor.

Mr. Barrow is promising to increase police presence across the city, though he hasn't said exactly how he would pay for it. A third of Detroiters live at or near the poverty level, and the city's crime rate is annually among the worst in the nation.

Mr. Bing trumpeted a 12% drop in fires on the traditionally mischief-making night before Halloween this year. He has had less luck reducing the city's unemployment rate, which hovers just under 30%, the highest of any major city in the nation.

The city's schools face a $259 million budget deficit which Robert Bobb, the state-appointed emergency financial manager, hasn't yet been able to eliminate since taking over the district's finances this spring. Mr. Bing is a big supporter of Mr. Bobb, and the pair campaigned together over the weekend.

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