What to expect from BBC Your Voice election debate in Wrexham

Blood, sweat and tears will be the order of the day in the run-up to May in Wrexham.

There will be no guarantees of success. It could be a cliffhanger of a result and there may be implications for years to come.

No, I am not talking about Wrexham AFC's battle for promotion to the Premier League, but about the battle among the political parties to win the Senedd election in the city, like elsewhere across Wales.

But they often say politics is like football. It is certainly tribal enough, and I will be putting all of that to the test when I host a BBC Wales Your Voice live debate on Tuesday night in Wrexham.

Of course, I am not pretending the Senedd campaign will come close to matching the Hollywood-fuelled hysteria if the club makes it into the richest football league in the world.

But it will be fascinating to see what happens here politically, an area which has had a slow-burning relationship with Cardiff Bay over the years.

Senedd politicians probably have to work harder to get their voices heard in north-east Wales than anywhere else.

The working lives of people often take them across the border to Chester or into Liverpool or Manchester.

Cardiff can, understandably, feel a long way from their day-to-day activities.

Despite that, voters have become more engaged with devolved politics since it all began 27 years ago.

Sometimes it is not for happy reasons, with the driver being concern, even anger, about the performance of the health board covering north Wales, Betsi Cadwaladr.

Although I should stress that, for all those who have difficult experiences, there are many others who receive great care at difficult points in their lives from committed staff.

Nevertheless, Betsi Cadwaladr is the poorest performing health board in Wales when it comes to waiting times, and that has not gone unnoticed.

I will expect this to be raised in the debate, as almost certainly will be levels of investment in the north compared to the south, a constant bone of contention that never seems to go away.

A bit like the football action in the Championship, we are approaching the business end of proceedings in the politics.

Reform UK and the Conservatives have both published their manifestos.

Plaid Cymru has given us a plan for its first 100 days in office if it leads a government, Labour a campaign launch, while the Liberal Democrats and Greens have held events setting out policy priorities.

Election day might feel some way off into the distance, particularly in the context of the pace of events unravelling in the Middle East, but the parties are all out of the blocks.

You never quite know when voters start fully engaging with an election, but I am hoping the TV debate will be the moment when many really begin to think about the choices.

We do not have party leaders - that will come towards the end of the campaign. Instead this is an opportunity for other figures, some local and some from further afield, to have a crack at setting out their stall in front of a live audience.

If this is the wake-up moment for many voters, then the candidates have a big responsibility, or an opportunity, to make an impact.

As we know, once minds are made up, it can be difficult to shift them.

I have covered Senedd campaigns for many years but this feels different, and is tangibly different, on a number of levels.

We are all voting on the same issues such as health, education and transport, but the mechanics of the voting process have changed dramatically.

We will now be voting for an enlarged 96-seat Senedd with 16 new, larger constituencies entirely based on a system of proportional representation.

What it means for Wrexham is that the old constituency now forms part of Fflint Wrecsam, which will return six Senedd members in May.

And then there is the backdrop, with polls for the first time suggesting Labour's 27-year dominance is under serious threat from Plaid Cymru and Reform.

Wrexham and north-east Wales were traditionally considered part of Labour's so-called red wall which came under attack from the Conservatives in the Brexit years but returned to Labour at the last general election.

With the Senedd election taking place at such a febrile political time in the UK, there is an unpredictability to it all.

To finish where I began, maybe it does feel like a tight, nail-biting race for promotion to the Premier League after all.

That comparison between football and politics may be more relevant than ever before.

The BBC Wales Your Voice live debate in Wrexham will be on BBC One Wales at 20:00 GMT and will be available on BBC iPlayer.