This is the Guardian.

Welcome to Politics Weekly, Extra, I'm Jonathan Friedland.

The midterm elections, those battles for seats in the House and Senate and various

governorships across the country are less than a year away. The conventional wisdom says

Democrats are going to lose and maybe even lose big. That would be a huge blow for Joe Biden

and possibly set the stage for the return in 2024 of Donald Trump.

And one state that counts in particular is Georgia. Last time it was a key swing state.

It helped give Joe Biden the presidency by voting democratic for the first time since 1992

and it helped give Democrats control of the Senate. All coming down to two Senate seats for Georgia

which themselves went to runoff elections resolved in January of this year.

Those big gains in 2020 were soothing balm for a democratic party in Georgia that was still

feeling the sting of having lost the governor's race in 2018. A race they very much felt they

should have won and felt they would have won. Had it not been for Republican efforts to suppress

the vote but that defeat led to something big. It inspired the Democratic candidate in 2018,

Stacey Abrams, to spend the next year campaigning against voter suppression and working tirelessly

to register and enfranchise more of those key voters, especially voters of color.

And her effort was seen as crucial in getting Joe Biden to the White House.

Well last week Stacey Abrams announced that she would be running for governor again,

setting out the possibility of a rematch against her 2018 opponent Brian Kemp.

But Brian Kemp now has a problem. Back in 2018 he was the personal favorite of Donald Trump,

but he is very much fallen off the former president's Christmas card list. All of which means

that all eyes are on Georgia a state to watch in the coming year. So to discuss all this,

...