President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both clinched their parties’ nominations on Tuesday, all but cementing a bruising rematch.
Both men knew this would happen. Neither faced much of a challenge from their long-shot opponents and spent months slinging mud at the other.
The Associated Press named Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee after projecting his victory in Georgia.
He quickly scooped up the 1,968 delegates needed having already dominated last week’s Super Tuesday and every prior Democratic primary.
While Trump was tapped as the Republican presumptive nominee after he swept through the GOP contests in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington State.
The three states – including Georgia, where Trump is facing criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential results – handed Trump a combined delegate count of 161, tipping him over the 1,215 goalpost.
Again, Trump’s victory was almost predetermined, with the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley ending her bid for the White House after Trump overpowered Super Tuesday and won 14 out of 15 state contests.
Biden and Trump will be named their respective party’s nominees later in the summer at the Democratic and Republican conventions.
This will all but set the stage for the first presidential rematch in nearly 70 years – the last was between Republican President Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson in 1956.
Biden said in a statement: ‘I am honoured that the broad coalition of voters representing the rich diversity of the Democratic Party across the country have put their faith in me once again to lead our party – and our country – in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever.’
In a video posted on social media, Trump said this was no time to celebrate either.
‘We’re going to drill, baby, drill. We’re going to close our borders. We’re going to do things like nobody has ever seen before. And we’re going to make our nation’s economy be the best ever in the world,’ he said.
Yet a sitting president running against a former one isn’t quite what voters had wanted this year, according to polls.
Both are unpopular with voters for various reasons. At 81, Biden is already the oldest president in US history, something about six in 10 voters aren’t too jazzed about.
Trump, meanwhile, at 77, is facing similar concerns. He is the first US president in history to be indicted with criminal charges, facing 91 felony counts across four indictments.
Roughly six in 10 voters see him unfavourably, a survey last week found.
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