Paul Sancya / AP John James at a primary night election party in Detroit, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2018. 

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — President Donald Trump welcomed John James into the Oval Office last week.  The visit, commemorated in a photo behind the Resolute desk, was the first time Trump had met the Republican Senate nominee from Michigan.  For weeks, though, he had admired James from afar.  Sight unseen, Trump endorsed him in last month’s primary (“SPECTACULAR!”)  with a tweet that declared him an “African American leader.”  Vice President Mike Pence already has headlined a fundraiser for James.  Donald Trump Jr. is expected to hold an event for him in October, according to sources familiar with the plans.  All of this is an inordinate amount of White House investment in a contest few regard as competitive.  Recent polls show Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow leading by double digits.  But James, 37, represents a flicker of diversity in a largely white Republican Party led by a president who has inflamed racial tensions by mollifying white supremacists and denigrating black NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to raise awareness of social injustice.  He would be the first black Republican elected to a major statewide office in Michigan and one of only four black Republicans in Congress.  James also has the kind of central casting résumé Trump loves: West Point graduate, Iraq War veteran, president of his family’s logistics company in Detroit. “ Even if it’s not a top-tier race, John James is a top-tier candidate,” said Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist who is advising Trump Jr. in his political activities. “ I think a lot of Republicans see a future star in him.  Whether this Senate race works out or not, I think John is going to have a big future in the Republican Party.”  James, in an interview here last week before an event with supporters, chose his words carefully when asked about how his candidacy squares with Trump’s rhetoric. “ I believe that as a citizen, and certainly as a senator, I can disagree with the president without attacking him,” James said. “ I can also agree with him without worshipping him. …  I believe that, as a black man in this country, there are more things that unite me with my brothers and sisters — of all races, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations — than divide us.  And I’m looking forward to focusing on those things, rather than the things that divide us.  I’m looking forward to being a compassionate conservative as I am a conscientious capitalist. …  But as far as the president’s comments go, those are his comments … and I’ll allow him to manage that.” 

Paul Sancya / AP James with supporters at his primary night election party in Detroit, on Tuesday, Aug. 7. 

James is on record (via a Detroit News columnist) supporting Trump “2,000%.”  A video series posted to his YouTube channel in the early weeks of his primary campaign is filled with shoutouts to Trump and angry asides about Democrats and their “socialist hands.”  In one installment, James praised NBA commissioner Adam Silver for encouraging basketball players to stand for the anthem “and work in the communities to help fix racism,” and asserted that “the NFL is doing neither.”  But James, two days after his Oval Office photo op, didn’t mention Trump once during his 20-minute speech at the Kent County Republican Party headquarters.  A large Ford-Dole banner hung behind James as he paced the floor with a wireless microphone, a tribute to the the Michigan-raised president and a relic of a gentler era in Republican politics.  A Trump-Pence sign was relegated to a side wall.  With few exceptions — support for embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the requisite jabs at Stabenow — James presented himself as a postpartisan healer. “ I’m not going to fit neatly into anybody’s little red or little blue box,” he said at one point, repeating a shopworn line he had offered in his earlier interview with BuzzFeed News.  James also offered a parable he said he heard in church, about an old married couple that would go for long Sunday afternoon drives: “A young lady and a young man would cuddle up, and this was back when there were no safety standards.  You could just lean over and hang out in the lap of the driver.  They would just cuddle and have a nice drive.”  But over time the couple “increasingly separated.”  They stayed in the marriage, but also on their own side of the car.  This is how James views politics: A country where we’re all stuck with each other, for better or worse, bound by faith and family and constitutional rights, but increasingly separated by tribalism. “ There is a divisive element in this country that’s seeking to pull us apart,” James said, “and we have an obligation to make sure we wrap our arms around all Michiganders, all Americans, regardless of what we look like or our political affiliation, and lead effectively.”  His supporters, almost all of them white and many clutching fresh James yard signs with an American flag and Army helicopter logo, loved it. “ Good!”  a man yelled when James used the “little red or little blue box” line.  A moment later, another man shouted: “John, we deserve you.”  Afterward, dozens lined up for photos with the candidate.  It took James a half hour to accommodate everyone.  In James, these Republicans see a reason to feel good.  Several who were in the Kent County crowd, and others cheering him on from Washington, rave about his service as an Army aviation officer and swoon over his “charisma.”  Others predict he will have crossover appeal with Democrats, particularly with black Democrats in the state’s most populous city, though they are somewhat careful how they say that. “ I believe that if Detroit gets its act together, the people in Detroit will come in to save him,” Hank Fuhs, the secretary of the Michigan Republican Party, told BuzzFeed News when asked how James could close the gap with Stabenow.  But when asked if that meant he believes a black candidate is advantageous to the party, Fuhs demurred. “ I don’t see color,” he said. “ What I see in him is a genuine person.  We’re all in the same boat.  Apple pie, 4th of July, and we’re worried about the future, the kids, etc.”  James shows little interest in emphasizing the historical significance of his campaign.  An aide to South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, currently the Senate’s only black Republican, said Scott and James haven’t talked.  And James would not say if he would join the Congressional Black Caucus, where Rep. Mia Love of Utah is the only Republican. “ That's not something John is focused on right now,” a spokesperson said.  Conversely, the pioneering story of James’ father is well-documented on the website for the family’s James Group International.  The elder James was the first black business owner authorized to transport auto parts in Michigan and the first authorized nationally by the Interstate Commerce Commission.  Frustrated with a trucking industry that had favored large companies, he pushed for deregulation in the 1970s to benefit entrepreneurs like him. 

Paul Sancya / AP James at his headquarters in Livonia, Michigan, Monday, Aug. 6, 2018.