Detroit mayoral field narrows from 15 to two

DETROIT (Reuters) - Detroit's interim Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. and NBA legend-turned-businessman Dave Bing appeared set to face off in a May election to pick a mayor for the troubled and cash-strapped city for the remainder of 2009.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Bing had nearly 29 percent of votes cast with 27 percent for Cockrel, putting them atop a crowded field of 15 candidates.

The top two vote-getters in Tuesday's mayoral primary, the first of four Detroit mayoral votes this year, will face each other in a May 5 vote with the winner serving out the remaining months of the term of disgraced former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Kilpatrick pleaded guilty last September to lying under oath in a police whistle-blower case. He resigned and served 99 days of jail time under a plea deal with prosecutors.

Turnout was extremely light on Tuesday, with less than 10 percent of the city's registered voters casting a ballot.

Three months after the May election, Detroit voters will go back to the polls for a regularly scheduled primary.

America's 11th largest city will then vote in November to elect a mayor to serve a four-year term beginning in January.

Detroit is grappling with a $300 million budget shortfall and an economy that has been hit hard by the crisis for the U.S. auto industry and a long-running population decline.

General Motors Corp, the largest employer in Detroit, has been kept afloat since the start of the year with emergency federal loans and is seeking a bailout of up to $30 billion.

Unemployment in the city hit 18.6 percent in December, more than twice the national rate of 7.6 percent. Detroit's poverty is one of the highest in the United States.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Detroit's bonds to junk status in January, making it even more expensive for the city to issue and roll over debt.

Detroit ranked as the poorest big city in the United States according to 2007 census data, with 34 percent of its population living below the poverty level.

(Reporting by Kevin Krolicki, editing by Anthony Boadle)