Incumbent Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won their parties’ nominations on Tuesday, setting off the first US presidential runoff in nearly 70 years, Reuters reported.

Joe Biden needed 1,968 delegates to clinch the nomination, according to Edison Research, and surpassed that number Tuesday night as results from the Georgia primary began to come in.

Results also started coming in from Mississippi, Washington state, the Northern Mariana Islands and Democrats living abroad.

Hours later, Trump secured the 1,215 delegates needed for the GOP presidential nomination as four states held contests, including Georgia, a battleground state where Trump has faced criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 results in the state. On Tuesday, 161 delegates were up for grabs in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington state.

Biden, 81, issued a statement after the Democratic nomination, taking aim at what he called Trump’s “campaign of resentment, revenge and retribution” that threatens the very idea of ​​America.

“Voters now have a choice about the future of this country. Will we stand up and defend our democracy, or will we allow others to destroy it? Will we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms, or will we allow extremists to take them away from us?” he added.

Tuesday’s election result was essentially a foregone conclusion, as Trump’s latest contender for the Republican nomination, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, ended her presidential campaign after Trump’s dominant performance last week on Super Tuesday, when she won 14 of 15 state contests.

Meanwhile, Biden faced only token opposition in the Democratic primary, though liberal activists frustrated by his support for Israel’s war on Gaza convinced a sizeable minority of Democrats to vote “abstain” in protest.

Both men have already turned their attention to the Nov. 5 general election, holding dueling rallies in Georgia on Saturday.

In Rome, Georgia, Trump, 77, repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged and accused Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis of politically motivated prosecution. He also attacked Biden for failing to stem the flow of migrants at the US southern border, an issue he plans to keep at the center of the campaign, as he did in 2020.

Biden’s campaign began a more aggressive phase on Friday, announcing that Biden would visit several battleground states amid a $30 million ad buy. The campaign said it raised $10 million in the 24 hours after Biden’s State of the Nation address, increasing Democrats’ financial lead over Republicans.

Voters lack enthusiasm

The last presidential rematch was in 1956, when Republican President Dwight Eisenhower defeated former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat, for a second term.

Voters haven’t expressed enthusiasm this year for a repeat of the hard-fought 2020 election, with Reuters/Ipsos polls showing neither Biden nor Trump are popular with a majority of voters.

Trump’s slew of criminal charges — he faces 91 felonies in four separate indictments — could hurt his standing among well-educated suburban voters, whose support he has historically sought to win.

He is set to become the first former US president to stand trial in a criminal trial on March 25 in New York, where he is accused of falsifying business records to hide secret payments to a porn star.

The most serious case against him is usually considered a federal indictment in Washington, D.C., which accuses him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. But the case is pending after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to Trump’s presidential immunity and it is unclear whether a trial could take place until election day.

Biden has been dogged by the perception among most voters that he is too old for a second four-year term, though allies believe his impassioned State of the Union speech may counter that idea.

The current crisis at the US-Mexico border, where the influx of migrants has overwhelmed the system, is another weak spot for Biden. He tried to shift the blame to Trump after the former president called on congressional Republicans to repeal a bipartisan border security bill that would have strengthened enforcement.

The economy, as always, will be the central theme of the campaign. Biden has presided over a booming economy, inflationary pressures have eased, and stocks have hit all-time highs. But polls show Americans don’t want to give credit to the president and are frustrated by high prices for things like food in the wake of the pandemic.

(news.ro)