Trump wins delegates needed to become presidential nominee

Donald Trump will lead the Republicans in a third consecutive presidential election after clinching the nomination.

With wins in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state, Mr Trump surpassed the 1,215-delegate threshold needed to become the presumptive Republican nominee.

He will formally accept the nomination at the Republican

National Convention in July, by which point he could be in the remarkable position of being both a presidential candidate and convicted felon.

Mr Trump has been indicted in four separate criminal investigations and his first trial, which centres on payments made to a porn actress, is set to begin March 25 in New York City.

His victory in the Republican primaries ushers in what will almost certainly be an extraordinarily negative general election campaign that will tug at the nation's already searing political and cultural divides.

He will face President Joe Biden in the autumn, pitting two unpopular figures against each other in a rematch of the 2020 campaign that few voters say they want to experience again.

Thirty-eight per cent of

Americans viewed Mr Trump very or somewhat favourably in a February poll conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs, compared to 41 per cent for Mr Biden.

The former president is attempting to return to the White House after threatening democratic norms in the US.

He refused to accept his loss to Mr Biden in 2020, spending months grasping at baseless conspiracy theories of election fraud that were roundly rejected by the courts and his own attorney general.

His rage during a rally on January 6, 2021, helped rile up a mob of supporters who later violently attacked the US Capitol in an effort to disrupt the congressional certification of Mr Biden’s win.

Only in the wake of the insurrection, with store fronts in the nation’s capital boarded up and military vehicles parked on streets to prevent further violence, did Mr Trump accept the reality that Mr Biden would become president.

He has since called January 6 “a beautiful day”.