BIDEN, TRUMP CLINCH NOMINATIONS

Results from primaries set off the campaign for the first US presidential rematch in nearly 70 years

US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump have both clinched their party nominations, kicking off the first presidential election rematch in nearly 70 years.

Democrat Biden needed 1,968 delegates to win the nomination, and he passed that number on Tuesday night as results began to come in from a primary contest in Georgia, Edison Research said. Results were also coming in from Mississippi, Washington state, the Northern Mariana Islands and Democrats living abroad.

Hours later, Trump clinched the 1,215 delegates required to secure the Republican presidential nomination as four states held contests, including Georgia, the battleground where Trump faces criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 results.

There were 161 delegates at stake on Tuesday in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington state.

Biden, 81, issued a statement after he sealed 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 to make about the future of this country. Are we going to stand up and defend our democracy or let others tear it down? Will we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms or let extremists take them away?” he said.

The outcome of Tuesday’s voting was predetermined after Trump’s last remaining rival for the Republican nomination, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, ended her presidential campaign following Trump’s dominant performance last week on Super Tuesday, when he won 14 of 15 state contests.

In a video posted on social media, Trump said there was no time to celebrate, and instead put the focus on beating Biden, whom he called the worst president in United States history.

“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.

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

Both men have already turned their attention to the November 5 general election, holding duelling rallies in Georgia last Saturday.

In Rome, Georgia, Trump, 77, attacked Biden for failing to stem the flow of migrants at the US southern border, an issue he intends to keep front and centre throughout the campaign, as he did in 2020.

The Biden campaign launched a more aggressive phase last Friday, announcing Biden would tour several battleground states amid a US$30 million ad buy. The campaign said it raised US$10 million in the 24 hours after Biden’s State of the Union speech, adding to Democrats’ financial edge over Republicans.

The last repeat presidential match-up took place in 1956, when Republican president Dwight Eisenhower defeated former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat, for the second time.

This year, voters have expressed little enthusiasm for a repeat of the bitter 2020 election, with Reuters/Ipsos public polls showing both Biden and Trump are unpopular with most voters.

Are we going to stand up and defend our democracy or let others tear it down? PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN