Trump likely to clinch Republican nomination
Donald Trump only needs to win 140 delegates out of the 161 up for grabs in four state primaries
Former United States President Donald Trump is set to get the Republican party’s nomination as its presidential candidate on Tuesday by winning the primaries.
The voting in Georgia, Hawaii, Washington and Mississippi offer a combined 161 delegates and Trump just needs to win 140 delegates as his sole remaining rival Nikki Haley dropped out after last week’s 15-state “Super Tuesday” voting.
Georgia was long reliably Republican but has become more competitive and is now seen as crucial to any candidate’s White House ambitions. Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to lose Georgia in almost three decades.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Georgians had cast 284,000 Republican ballots and 155,000 Democratic ballots by the end of early voting on Friday. The total early vote in 2020 was 1.2 million.
The contests will renew scrutiny of Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election in the state where he lost to Biden by fewer than 12,000 votes in the last election.
He was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia in August last year on racketeering and conspiracy charges, given the inmate number “PO1135809” by the Fulton County Jail and released on a $200,000 bond.
Accused of colluding with multiple other defendants to overturn the 2020 election result in the southern state, the 77-year-old had his mug shot taken during the booking process — a first for any serving or former US president.
The former president — who denies all wrongdoing — is being prosecuted under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, which is usually used to nail down mob figures.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden will be on the primary ballots in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington plus in the Northern Marianas, a US-held island chain in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.
Biden has not faced a serious challenge — easily seeing off two candidates who have consistently polled in single digits — and can also clinch the nomination on Tuesday if he wins 40 percent of the available delegates.