The election in Georgia could be as pivotal as it was four years ago

In 2020 no other state produced as much election drama as Georgia. In the end it gave Democrats slender victories that helped them win both the White House and a majority in the Senate, though not before Donald Trump, unsuccessfully, implored Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes”, the number needed to overturn the swing state’s results in his favour. In 2024 Georgia will again find itself taking centre stage—for three reasons.The first is Mr Trump. After a , the former president looks as politically robust as ever. Though his legal woes have not alienated Republican voters (rather the reverse), they could yet cause him trouble, not least in Georgia. Last August a grand jury indicted him for running a criminal ring that conspired to overturn the state’s 2020 election. Unlike in the federal cases pending in Washington and Florida, if re-elected Mr Trump could not pardon himself from the Georgia charges (though, according to long-standing policy, he would have immunity while in the White House). Nor could Brian Kemp, the state’s Republican governor, nix them.