Joe Biden and rival Donald Trump won enough delegates on Tuesday to clinch their parties’ nominations in the 2024 presidential race, the networks predicted, in addition to securing a rematch and setting up one of the longest election campaigns in US history.
The results of Tuesday’s four statewide elections, the latest in a months-long march to determine the Democratic and Republican flag-bearers, were largely a foregone conclusion, as incumbent Biden and former President Trump had already eliminated all primary challengers.
Biden crossed the threshold of 1,968 needed delegates when he won Georgia – the US swing state where Trump is facing trial for an alleged conspiracy to steal the last election.
Trump’s victory in Washington helped him secure the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination — and put him and his Make America Great Again movement back in the cauldron of the presidential race.
Delegates—members of party leadership and other loyalists—will attend national conventions to formally select their party’s presidential candidate.
As the pair now head into a rematch of their showdown in 2020, Biden took on his challenger in a statement.
“I am honored that a broad coalition of voters representing the rich diversity of the Democratic Party across the country has renewed their trust in me to lead our party — and our country — at a time when the threat posed by Trump is greater. than ever,” Biden said, attacking his rival’s “campaign of spite, revenge and retribution.”
Georgia, Mississippi, Washington and Hawaii — the Pacific island state where polls were scheduled to close hours later on Tuesday — offered a combined 161 GOP delegates, and Trump needed 137 of them unopposed to put the race mathematically out of reach.
Trump’s remarkable sweep of nearly every state GOP primary to date has seen him essentially secure the nomination far earlier than most candidates in previous campaigns, setting up an extremely drawn-out, nearly eight-month race for the White House between the two oldest men running . when they started their presidencies.
Trump, who faces multiple criminal charges in cases that have so far failed to derail his 2024 campaign, insisted in a victory statement that the Republican Party is strong and united behind him.
“We are now, under the leadership of Crooked Joe Biden, a third world nation using a system of lawlessness to go after their political opponent, ME!” he wrote on his Truth Social Media platform.
“But don’t worry, we will not fail, we will take back our once great land.
Horror Show
Trump is campaigning for sweeping reform of what he calls Biden’s “horror show” immigration policy, despite successfully pushing Republicans to block the toughest border security package negotiated in Congress in decades.
The issue has become a flashpoint in Georgia — which has long been reliably Republican but has become more competitive and is now seen as key to any candidate’s White House ambitions — because of the recent murder of nursing student Laken Riley, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant. .
“We’re looking at open borders and we’re looking at inflation. Those two issues (already) have people in Georgia pretty upset,” Republican Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, told Fox News.
“But the brutal murder … really took it to a whole other level. People here in Georgia are furious.”
The contests have renewed scrutiny of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia — a southern state he lost to Biden by less than 12,000 votes — as he prepares for a third run at the White House.
The pressure led to one of four charges he faces and set the stage for a year of unprecedented drama as the 77-year-old tries to juggle several court appearances and another election campaign.
Trump, the first Republican presidential candidate to lose Georgia in nearly three decades, has claimed foul play, but several recounts and numerous lawsuits have shown no evidence of significant voter fraud anywhere in the country.
On the Democratic side, Biden, like most incumbents, faced a relaxed primary season — easily sweeping two candidates who consistently polled in the single digits.
But he faces concerns about his age and issues like inflation, as well as low approval ratings, elements Trump’s team tried to capitalize on during the campaign.
Biden essentially raised the curtain on his campaign last week during his State of the Union address, in which he sought to reassure voters about his age and launched a searing attack on his “dangerous” electoral rival.
