James Shade

Democrat

State House of Representatives - District 22 · Cobb County, Georgia · November 3, 2026

Also on the ballot: Jordan Ridley (Republican)

James Shade is a corporate governance professional making his second run for Georgia House District 22 after losing to incumbent Jordan Ridley in 2024. His platform emphasizes education funding, expanding health-care access, renewable energy, and government transparency; specific positions on personal freedom, crime/policing, guns, and immigration, as well as campaign finance data, could not be confirmed.

What this office decides

A Georgia state representative votes on the state budget, tax rates, and statewide laws on schools, health coverage, crime, guns, and elections. The office also shapes transportation and development spending that reaches Cobb County. Each member is one vote of 180 in the state House.

How this race lines up with you

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Dossier

Researched 2026-09-22 · Claude Code research agent with web search

Donald Trump: nothing found. No news coverage or statement connecting James Shade to a Trump endorsement or criticism was found in this research.

Sierra Club (for) source
Vote Common Good (for) source
Fighting Fifty (for) source
Democracy Defenders (for) source

Who they are

James Shade is the Democratic candidate challenging Republican incumbent Jordan Ridley for Georgia House District 22, a rematch of the 2024 race he lost (Ballotpedia via search results). He has never held elected office (Tribune Ledger News). He works in corporate governance at RaceTrac Inc. and holds a law degree from Florida State University College of Law and a bachelor's degree from National University (BallotReady).

Positions

Taxes & spending: His Legislative Responsibility platform plank pledges fiscally conservative budgeting and transparency, without detailing specific tax proposals (James Shade campaign site).
Schools: Platform calls for empowering parents, paying teachers competitively, and expanding career and technical training; his 2024 platform also called for equally distributed school funding (James Shade campaign site; Branch).
Personal freedom: No public position found.
Health care: Supports expanding access to affordable care in rural communities, lowering prescription drug costs, and investing in mental-health resources (James Shade campaign site).
Crime & policing: No public position found.
Voting rules: In his 2024 platform he called for added election-security measures, including cybersecurity protections for voting systems, better poll-worker training, and more resources for oversight agencies; this addresses election-system security rather than access rules specifically (Branch).

Record

Has never held public office; this is his second consecutive run for this seat after losing to Ridley in November 2024 by roughly 60.5%-39.5% (Wikipedia). Professionally, he has worked in corporate governance and contracts at RaceTrac (2022-present), Accelerate360 (2019-2021), and Thrasher Worth LLC (2015-2019), and earlier in pharmacy/compliance at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (BallotReady).

Money

Not found. TransparencyUSA and Georgia's ethics.ga.gov campaign-finance portal returned no usable data during this research (bot-protection blocks and server errors prevented access), so no fundraising total, cash on hand, or donor list could be confirmed.

What we couldn't find

Campaign finance totals, donors, or cash on hand.
Positions on personal freedom/social issues, crime/policing, guns, or immigration.
Dates for his listed endorsements (Vote Common Good, Sierra Club, Fighting Fifty, Democracy Defenders, and entertainer T-Pain are listed on his campaign site with no dates given) (James Shade campaign site).
Any Trump endorsement or criticism.

Sources (9)