The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. Absolutely free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and life.

My name is Freddie Gray. I'm the deputy editor of The Spectator. I am joined now by

Matt McDonald, who works for The Spectator in America and has been in Georgia for the last month

covering the election there. Matt, once again, Georgia has turned out to be incredibly close in these midterms,

and it will go to a runoff in four weeks' time. Give me a sense of what Georgians were thinking

about the race. Did everybody expect it to be this close? Did they expect Warnock to win?

Tell me what you've been hearing.

Thanks, Freddie.

So it's been an interesting race once again down in Georgia, which is kind of why I came down here.

I would say that the fact that it's gone to a runoff is probably the least surprising outcome.

It just because people did expect a close race here. The reason why they expect a close race here, though, is because of

candidate quality concerns on the Republican side, which is the phrase that Senate Minority Leader

Mitch McConnell used regarding a number of the candidates who Donald Trump

helped to select in the Republican primary process, who then have come and stumbled when it's

come to the general.

Warrenick is, Raffa Warnock was only elected.

He was elected in a runoff down here. The result of that was

finally announced on January 6th, 2021. So it's probably the second most significant thing that happened

that day. So he's been, he's basically been in the seat for about, you know, just shy of two years.

And yeah, a close, a close race was always anticipated. The fact that Georgia has become

this kind of like swing state is testament to what happened after the last governor's race back

...