This is a developing story...
The results are in and the venerable John Conyers, Jr. is emerging triumphant in his battle for the newly redistricted 13th Congressional District U.S. House seat.
As of 11 p.m. Tuesday night, Conyers has polled 60 percent with 96 percent of precincts reporting. That's a devastating lead over his opponents: state Senators Glenn Anderson of Westland (with 11 percent) and Bert Johnson of Highland Park (with 12 percent), state Rep. Shanelle Jackson (14 percent) and Wayne Westland school board member John Goci (3 percent).
Now serving his twenty-fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Conyers is a politician who carries a powerful legacy. The second-oldest member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he is known as the "Dean" of the Congressional Black Caucus and is a former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Some of his more famous pieces of legislation include the Motor Voter Bill of 1993, the Martin Luther King Holiday Act of 1983 and the Alcohol Warning Label Act of 1988.
Despite his accomplishments Conyers drew fire during his campaign for refusing to debate his opponents.
He also had the challenge of competing as a candidate in an newly drawn district that included new constituencies in Detroit's suburbs with substantially different demographic makeups than the majority African-American city of Detroit. In addition to this, Rep. Conyers had to overcome political baggage resulting from his wife Monica's 2009 guilty plea for conspiracy to commit bribery. She is now serving out a three-year prison term.
Conyers says his priority as a Congressman remains passing the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, a bill that he says would create full employment for those who want to work.
His victory means that the state of Michigan will retain at least one African-American legislator in the U.S. House of Representatives.