Trump, Biden clinch party nominations

Joe Biden and rival Donald Trump each won enough delegates on Tuesday to clinch their party nominations in the 2024 presidential race, networks projected, all but assuring a rematch and setting up one of the longest election campaigns in US history.

The results in four statewide elections, the latest in the months-long march to determine the Democratic and Republican party flagbearers, were a foregone conclusion as incumbent Biden and former president Trump had already seen off all primary challengers.

Biden crossed the threshold of 1,968 delegates needed when he won Georgia – a US swing state where Trump faces trial over an alleged conspiracy to steal the last election.

Trump’s victory in Washington helped him secure the 1,215 delegates needed to earn the Republican nomination – and to propel him and his Make America Great Again movement back into the cauldron of a presidential race.

As the pair head for a rematch of their 2020 showdown, Biden laid into his challenger.

“I am honored that the broad coalition of voters representing the Democratic Party have put their faith in me once again to lead our party in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever,” Biden said.

Georgia, Mississippi, Washington and Hawaii were offering 161 delegates on the Republican side, and unopposed Trump needed 137 of those to put the race beyond reach.

Trump’s remarkable sweep of nearly all GOP state primaries led him to secure the nomination far earlier than most candidates in previous campaigns, and it assures an eight-month slog for the White House being contested by the two oldest men ever to begin their presidencies.

Trump is campaigning on sweeping reform of what he calls Biden’s “horror show” immigration policies, despite successfully pressuring Republicans to block the toughest package of border security negotiated in Congress for decades.