GOP lawmakers are pushing for John James, a failed Senate candidate in the 2018, to run for Congress in Michigan next year.
James is a West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran who ran against Sen. Debbie Stabenow in the 2018 midterm election, but lost by 6.5 percentage points.
Now top House and Senate Republicans are encouraging him to run again, sources told Politico. The push is twofold. Republicans in the Senate hope James will challenge Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., to bolster the GOP majority. On the House side, Republicans want him to run in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District near Detroit, a seat held by freshman Rep. Haley Stevens, a Democrat.
Federal judges tossed Michigan’s congressional and state legislative maps last month, meaning the districts for the 2020 election could change.
Interest in James has extended to the White House. He met with President Trump at the White House this week, after Vice President Mike Pence met with him last week in Michigan.
James has also spoken with the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, and with the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota.
“I think he’d be an outstanding candidate,” Young said. “It’s always helpful to have higher name ID on the back end of a contested race. He’s a special candidate with special gifts, so I certainly feel like he’ll have a lot of things going for him if he decides to run.”
A representative for James, 37, declined to provide a comment to Politico.
