The item below ran in late December 2021. Now that the year is almost over, we decided to take a look back at the issues that helped shape Georgia politics this year -- and update with our answer to each of the questions.

A race for Georgia governor involving three colossal figures in state politics. An ongoing Republican feud stoked by former President Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election. And a U.S. Senate battle that could determine control of the chamber.

At the dawn of 2022, Georgia is poised for yet another extraordinary political year that will draw attention to the most important battleground state in the nation.

Here are some of the biggest questions in Georgia that your Atlanta Journal-Constitution team will be watching this year:

Will Donald Trump ruin the Georgia GOP’s chances in 2022?

There’s a milder way to put this question: Can Georgia Republicans call a truce on their civil war? But the fact remains that the ugly infighting between state Republicans starts with the former president and his obsession with overturning his election defeat in Georgia.

Trump recruited former U.S. Sen. David Perdue to challenge Gov. Brian Kemp, wooed Herschel Walker to run for an open U.S. Senate seat and intervened in down-ticket races for lieutenant governor and secretary of state over incumbents who rejected his conspiracy theories.

Along the way, he’s defied predictions that his grip on the party’s base — and its rank-and-file officials — would fade. Instead, some of the loudest voices in the Georgia GOP calling for a post-Trump future are themselves endangered species.

The internal fissures were sparked by Trump, but others in the state have deepened the divides. Activists have scapegoated Republicans who didn’t give in to Trump’s demands. Top-tier candidates spoke at “Trump Won” rallies and promoted his election fraud mythology.

Many officials have embraced or echoed those lies, and most were silent after Trump mused at a rally in Perry that he wished Kemp had been defeated by Stacey Abrams, the archnemesis of many a Georgia Republican.

Those silent Republicans don’t want to invite further scorn from the former president and his followers. But that tightrope act will get more perilous by the day, as Kelly Loeffler and Perdue can attest, particularly in the Atlanta suburbs that the GOP is desperate to win back.

“Sometimes Republicans are our own worst enemy,” said state Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton. “I hope that the internal drama doesn’t prevent us from moving Georgia forward. But election-year politics are pretty tricky.”

ANSWER: Not really.

Republicans did, indeed, reach an uneasy truce in their civil war in 2022 to help Kemp demolish Perdue and emerge as the party’s clear leader. Other GOP incumbents brushed aside Trump-backed challengers. And even his picks in open U.S. House seats went down in flames.

The former president was so toxic in state GOP politics that Georgia was one of the only battleground states he didn’t visit in the runup to the November midterm. And party leaders warning he’d do more harm than help to Walker persuaded him to steer clear during the runoff.

As for Walker, Trump’s endorsement helped ice out GOP competition early in the cycle and lent his campaign legitimacy with the MAGA base.

But Walker’s loss had far more to do with his own considerable flaws – and Warnock’s successful strategy – than Trump’s long shadow.

Can Georgia Democrats overcome a souring national climate?

State Democrats flipped the script in the last election cycle by ending decades of defeats in presidential contests and U.S. Senate races. Now they’re trying to win another round of statewide seats, this time without a polarizing presidential election on the ballot.

They’re trying to reverse a curse in midterm elections that has persisted since 2010, when Republicans took control of every statewide constitutional office. And the political climate doesn’t appear inviting for Stacey Abrams or U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.

Credit: TNS

Voters tend to have a reflexive instinct to cast their ballots against the party in power during a midterm election, and President Joe Biden is already grappling with souring approval ratings, growing questions about his economic agenda and conservative pushback against his social policies.

What’s more, Democrats have their own internal fissures to heal, starting with a battle between U.S. Reps. Carolyn Bourdeaux and Lucy McBath for a suburban Atlanta congressional district that will be framed as a proxy fight between centrists and liberals.

Democrats also have reason to cheer. More than 1.2 million new voters have been added to the state’s rolls in recent years, many of them people of color who tend to favor their party. Abrams and Warnock — two of the party’s biggest national stars — have no formidable opposition within the party.

Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com

And of course, they will try to take advantage of the GOP infighting that has imperiled Gov. Brian Kemp’s base even if he wins the nomination. Abrams and other Democrats are trying to stay above the fray, for now at least, as they attempt to turn that rift into a gift.

“The reality is we need a leader who is willing to invest in Georgia and keep us together,” Abrams told the AJC, “not someone intent on dividing us.”

ANSWER: Not really.

While the much-ballyhooed red wave amounted to a ripple in most of the country, it crashed over Georgia with gale-force winds.

Kemp defeated Abrams by nearly 8 points, earning the mandate he couldn’t claim after his razor-thin 2018 win. Other statewide Republicans romped to victory. And the GOP-engineered redrawing of political boundaries ensured the party picked up a U.S. House seat.

The biggest Democratic bright spot, of course, was Warnock, whose runoff win helped cement Georgia’s battleground status. Unlike Abrams, Warnock successfully navigated anti-Biden backlash to turn the race into a referendum on his opponent.

But there was good news for Democrats beyond the pastor’s win.

U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop easily held off a formidable opponent in the state’s only competitive U.S. House race. And Democrats picked up a few legislative seats, slightly narrowing the GOP edge under the Gold Dome.

Can Raphael Warnock rebuild the coalition that fueled his 2021 win?

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock emerged as a breakout star in national politics last year, outdoing Democratic colleague Jon Ossoff in the U.S. Senate runoffs as they both swept GOP incumbents to flip control of the chamber.

Now up for a full six-year term, Warnock’s campaign promotes him as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the Senate in 2022. But, just like Stacey Abrams, he’s not veering from the liberal policies and stances that fueled his political rise.

He’s embraced an expansion of voting rights as his utmost priority. He supports the roughly $2 trillion social spending plan that’s the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s agenda. And he was a reliable Democratic vote on every other major issue that surfaced in his first year in office.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Republicans will try to turn that record against him in 2022 to back up their well-worn attacks in 2020 that painted him as a “radical socialist.” First, though, they’ll need to sort out their own mess.

Herschel Walker became the de facto GOP front-runner thanks to his towering name recognition and his tight alliance with Donald Trump. Most big-name Republicans were so fearful he would move back to Georgia from Texas to run that they steered clear.

But despite entering the race in August, the former football star has yet to account for persistent issues that have shadowed his campaign: A history of violence against women, questions about his academic credentials and concerns about his readiness for the job.

Several Republican rivals, led by Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, will try to leverage those vulnerabilities to gain a spot in a runoff with Walker. If their efforts fail, Warnock and Democrats are poised to bring those issues to the forefront.

ANSWER: Yes.

As expected, Walker steamrolled his GOP competition. And Democrats surfaced the former football player’s vulnerabilities to frame the race as a contrast between two vastly different candidates – or, as Warnock put it, of “competence and character.”

That helped Warnock mobilize a disparate group of voters that no other Georgia Democrat could successfully unite in 2022.

Polls showed Warnock had a huge advantage among Black voters, liberals and younger Georgians – traditional bastions of reliable Democratic support. But he also attracted a sizable bloc of swing voters, including white college-educated suburbanites who typically vote Republican.

His strategy is impossible to replicate; no other candidate can count on opponent with the sort of baggage Walker carried. But Warnock proved anew he was able to adapt to the playing field and win in a forbidding political climate.

Will the pandemic reshape Georgia politics again?

We’re now entering a third year that will be shaped by the coronavirus pandemic — and the political maneuvering surrounding it.

Just as pandemic restrictions became politicized in 2020, state and federal vaccination programs transformed into a polarizing issue in 2021.

The next year will bring new challenges — some seen and some unknowable — that continue to elevate issues of public health once relegated to afterthoughts in statewide debates.

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Gov. Brian Kemp has long sought to energize his base by warring in court against mask requirements and vaccine mandates — and pledging to never again institute an economic lockdown.

Like with many other divides, his rivals are squeezing him from both sides: Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue blames Kemp for not taking more aggressive action to ban local restrictions. Stacey Abrams says he’s squandered a golden opportunity to expand Medicaid.

But the rapid spread of the omicron variant offered another reminder that the still-raging pandemic could threaten campaigns in other ways, bringing to the forefront new questions about disease control and prevention.

ANSWER: Not really.

One of the earliest signs that the pandemic wouldn’t loom over the campaigns was a February TV ad without a mask in sight. It was a sign that Democrats were eager to shift attention from Covid-19 restrictions that had exasperated many voters.

But the pandemic continued to play a role. In an early misstep, Abrams posed for a maskless picture surrounded by students wearing face coverings. Republicans framed it as an act of brazen hypocrisy from a candidate who blamed Kemp’s “inaction” for the spread of the virus.

And Kemp made his decision to lift economic restrictions early in the pandemic a staple of his reelection message, pummeling Abrams and her allies for criticizing what he described as steps to protect “lives and livelihood.”

How brutal will this legislative session get?

A vast expansion of gun rights. New limits on abortion modeled after Texas restrictions. A fresh debate over which books are allowed in public school libraries. New obstacles to voting. And legislation that could allow Buckhead to divorce itself from Atlanta.

Those are just a few of the polarizing issues on the table in 2022 as leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature try to energize the party’s base — and Gov. Brian Kemp looks for different ways to inspire conservatives.

Credit: Ben Gray

In the middle will be House Speaker David Ralston, arguably the most powerful man in Georgia not named Kemp. He relishes his role as a filter for the most divisive issues, letting some reach votes while relegating others to the Gold Dome’s dustbin.

“I spent a lot of years here trying to protect our brand and enhance the economic development stature of our state,” Ralston said, “and I don’t intend to be caught up in someone else’s campaign and put that in jeopardy.”

Ralston has indicated that he doesn’t want to revisit some topics, such as another debate over abortion or transgender athletes. But he’s open to other contentious measures, such as letting gun owners carry concealed weapons without a permit.

And he hasn’t ruled out allowing legislation to carve out a new city of Buckhead, despite unanimous opposition from Democrats in the Legislature who represent Atlanta.

The speaker isn’t the only political fulcrum at the Legislature with the potential to sway every major debate.

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who opted against running for a second term, has urged fellow Republicans to steer clear of the “Trump approach” this legislative session.

Credit: Miguel Martinez for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Democrats once again face the reality that they can do little to stop a united Republican front in the Legislature. But House Minority Leader James Beverly, the top Democrat in the chamber, said his party can also show they’re the “grown-ups in the room.”

“Everyone tries to find something to scapegoat. Republicans are now just creating cultural problems to blame for day-to-day issues,” he said.

“And that’s avoiding the real intractable problems we’re facing with health care, education and mental illness,” Beverly said. “We’ll be loud and clear on those issues.”

ANSWER. Busy.

With the help of legislative leaders, Kemp united the Republican-controlled Legislature to embrace his plans to expand gun rights, direct how public school teachers address race and “divisive concepts,” and pass a $1.1 billion state surplus refund to taxpayers.

In fact, Kemp won just about every proposal on his considerable wish list – including a measure that set the stage for high school administrators to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

Along the way, Kemp signed a record-setting budget that gave raises to hundreds of thousands of public employees and law enforcement officials. And he inked a vast overhaul of the state’s flagging mental health system championed by the late House Speaker David Ralston.

Still, legislative leaders steered clear of other contentious debates, refusing calls from the party’s far-right to adopt stricter abortion limits, enact new obstacles to voting and carve the city of Atlanta into two municipalities.

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