Keep an Eye on the Michigan Senate Race Republican John James is the best Republican hope for a surprise pickup on Election Night.
Michigan hasn’t elected a Republican U.S. senator since 1994, and Republicans this year are working to save more than half a dozen seats in the upper chamber. But the Senate race in Michigan presents an unexpected pickup opportunity. Recent polls show Republican John James, a 39-year-old African-American Iraq war veteran, within striking distance of first-term Sen. Gary Peters and outperforming President Trump, who narrowly carried the state in 2016. The Real Clear Politics average has Mr. Peters leading 48.6% to 43.4%.
Mr. Peters, 61, was the only nonincumbent Democrat elected to the Senate in 2014. But his GOP opponent answered questions clumsily and repeatedly stumbled on the trail. Mr. James looks more formidable.
A Detroit native, he served eight years in the military before joining his family’s company, James Group International. He is now CEO of Renaissance Global Logistics, a subsidiary. Although he lost a 2018 challenge to Sen. Debbie Stabenow by 6.5 points, he was fighting a strong undertow: Democrats swept Michigan’s statewide offices, flipped two congressional seats and picked up five seats each in the state House and Senate.
Running on the same ticket as Mr. Trump may be both a blessing and curse. While the president may motivate Republican-leaning voters who didn’t turn out in 2018, he may do the same for Democrats. To flip the Senate seat, Mr. James will need to persuade moderates who dislike Mr. Trump but are leery of progressive policies.
Republican incumbents in other states are attempting a similar high-wire act, but Mr. James is able to use his personal background to defuse questions about race. In a phone interview, he recalls reading about George Floyd’s death the morning after it happened.
“I thought George Floyd was my reflection,” he says. “I had mixed feelings of anger and sadness and fear. When I take my suit off, I could be George Floyd. I’ve had guns drawn on me in a parked car in a parking lot because somebody perceived me as a threat.” He elaborates on the latter encounter with police: “My heart was racing, my palms were sweaty, and I thought, ‘Why am I responding like I am in Baghdad when I am Bloomfield?’ ”
Then he pivots: “I also know what it’s like to be an officer, to put your life on the line. I understand what it’s like to make a life-and-death decision. Both a black man and police officer could lose their life one night.”
He can be combative as well as conciliatory. Joe Biden recently called him a “disaster” during a Detroit campaign speech, and Mr. James tweeted in response: “I am a disaster for national Democrats’ narrative. A black man who thinks for himself.” He then posted a video addressing Mr. Biden: “Don’t forget your place in black America. You’re only where you are because you were Barack Obama’s vice president. That’s it.”
He recited some of the Democratic nominee’s verbal offenses against African-Americans, including his remark in May that “you ain’t black” if you don’t vote for Mr. Biden. Mr. James’s response: “The people you rely on so desperately for the position you’re in, and the position you want, are African-Americans. Yet you continue to insult us.”
Democrats have tried to taint Mr. James by his association with Mr. Trump. In 2017 he said he supported the president’s agenda “2,000%,” and Democrats are running ads that claim he supports a health-care plan “that would take away protections for 4.1 million Michiganders with pre-existing conditions” and “would leave 23 million Americans without health insurance.”
He rebuts the charge. First off, Mr. James disagrees with the lawsuit by Republican attorneys general to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which the administration supports. He wants to repeal and replace ObamaCare with legislation that makes health-insurance markets more competitive and increase choice for patients while maintaining protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Small businesses, for instance, would be allowed to offer association health plans across state lines that would increase risk pools. “Increasing competition and transparency will decrease costs,” he says. “Where monopolies exist, people suffer.”
He also distances himself from the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies. “I believe immigration is an economic and moral imperative,” he says. “We are losing opportunities in agriculture and hospitality; there are certain jobs that frankly American workers have said they don’t want. We need legal immigration that helps the economy grow and does not displace Americans who don’t want to do certain jobs” or endanger national security.
Both campaigns, along with outside groups, have been bombarding the airwaves in the final weeks. Whereas Democratic ads are largely negative, Mr. James’s seek to appeal to undecided moderate voters with a more uplifting and less overtly political message. In one, he describes America as “the only country where you can go from slave to senator in four generations, and from poverty to prosperity in one.”
Another shows Mr. James training in the Army. “In combat, the lives of American soldiers were in my hands, but none of us could have survived without lifting each other up,” he says. “We didn’t pick who to sacrifice or save. Unity is everything. That’s currently missing in Washington.”
Mr. Biden is also trying to appeal to voters’ desire for political comity. But Mr. James makes an explicit argument for the benefits of divided government. “If the pendulum swings too far to the left or right, it won’t benefit our state or nation,” he says. “A purple state with a Republican Legislature and Democratic governor now has a chance to have a Republican and Democratic senator—black and white, male and female. Michigan is better off having a friend on both sides of the aisle.”
Michigan voters have split tickets before. Mr. Peters won election by 13 points the same year that GOP Gov. Rick Snyder was re-elected by 4. Mr. James may have a better chance than other Republicans of weathering a backlash against Mr. Trump.
Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
Comments are closed.
