Looking to cut into U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s lead, Republican businessman John James used their first debate on Sunday night to repeatedly criticize her, saying she has done too little about the nation’s problems while at the same time attempting to put some distance between himself and President Donald Trump.

Meeting at the Grand Rapids campus of Grand Valley State University, Stabenow, D-Mich., and James engaged in a sharp back-and-forth over immigration, trade and health care, with Stabenow reminding the audience that James has said in the past he supported Trump’s agenda “2,000 percent” and arguing that the state needs someone with “a proven track record” to stand up to Trump.

“These are tough times … this is not the moment for inexperience,” said Stabenow, who is running for her fourth six-year term and is ranking Democratic leader on the Senate Agriculture Committee. “This is the moment for people who have relationships.” Most polls have shown Stabenow well ahead of James, a newcomer, heading into the Nov. 6 election.

The debate was hosted by WGVU Public Media. The two are set to meet for a second debate at 12:30 p.m. Monday at the Detroit Economic Club.

Throughout the hour-long debate in Grand Rapids, James, a 37-year-old African-American combat veteran, made the case that it’s time for Michigan to have new blood in the nation’s capital, saying that whether it’s been renegotiating trade agreements, settling immigration reform or even finding new funding for roads and bridges, Stabenow hasn’t done enough.

“My opponent has been in service for 43 years,” James said of the 68-year-old Stabenow, who served in the U.S. House and the state Legislature before going to Washington. “She’s a very nice lady, but I think over time she has become ineffective.”

He also accused her of becoming “hyper-partisan.”

But Stabenow pointed out – over James’ arguments to the contrary – that she has played a key role in efforts to find funding to replace lead water pipes in Flint and authorize a new navigational lock in northern Michigan. She also reminded him that it’s been his party, not hers, which has been in control of Lansing for the last eight years and the last four in Congress.

“I could point fingers,” she said. “It doesn’t do anything. … I want to continue putting my head down and working to accomplish things.”

The sharpest exchange seemed to come as the two argued over funding for Medicare and Social Security. James said that Congress needs to do the “hard job” of coming together and sorting out the spending for those programs on a regular basis; Stabenow argued that James wants to make Medicare and Social Security part of the annual budget process, saying, “I don’t think they should be affected by the whim of politics.”

“That’s ridiculous what he just said,” Stabenow said to the idea.

“We seem to be moving from crisis to crisis in this state,” James said at one point. “We don’t need more lip service. We don’t need more talking. We need action.”

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But James made several statements that seemed to put him at odds with President Trump, who endorsed him before the Republican primary in August, saying he doesn’t unequivocally support construction of a border wall with Mexico – but that he would leave it to immigration officials to decide – and that he would take issue with Trump’s proposal to zero out funding for Great Lakes restoration projects.

He even took a page from a local Democratic candidate, Elissa Slotkin, who is running against U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, and criticized Stabenow for taking contributions from pharmaceutical companies – which is interesting because James and Bishop share political advisers and Bishop has defended those contributions to his own campaign as proper.

Meanwhile, the two debated health care reform – with James accusing Stabenow of supporting a single-payer system and Stabenow noting that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act proposed by Republicans could have limited access to health care. They also argued over the Iran nuclear deal, with James saying it gave that country more than $100 million and Stabenow saying the deal was necessary to keep Iran from quickly developing a nuclear weapon.

On the final question of the night, James, who runs his family’s logistics and warehousing business in Detroit, said that Michigan and the U.S. need a “more permissive regulatory environment” to ensure that the state plays a lead role in the development of self-driving vehicles.

In response to James’ criticism that Stabenow supports regulation, she reminded him that she played a key role in helping to save General Motors and Chrysler in 2008-9, a rescue that Trump opposed and without which, she suggested, they wouldn't be having this conversation.

James, a West Point graduate and Apache pilot, responded: “You better remember where I was in 2008. I was in Iraq fighting in 2008…. I was a military officer, I fought for everybody.”

Stabenow, in her closing remarks, used his reference to say she honored his service, had managed to help get a west Michigan man awarded the Medal of Honor and pushed for outpatient health clinics to be opened for veterans across the state.

Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.

