Joe Biden clinches Democrat nomination, with Donald Trump on verge of GOP nod

The US President pushed beyond the delegates he needed after winning the Georgia primary, while Donald Trump is expected to get there overnight.

Joe Biden walks to speak to the press near Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Picture: AFP.

President Biden won enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee of his party in the latest round of primary voting on Tuesday, with former President Donald Trump expected to soon hit the threshold, more definitively starting the clock on a bitter and costly eight-month general election campaign.

There has been little uncertainty about their eventual selection — a pairing of elderly candidates most Americans don’t want — for months. Biden pushed beyond the delegates he needed after winning the Georgia primary, according to the Associated Press, while Trump was expected to get there overnight.

Democrats held nominating contests in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state, as well as in the Northern Mariana Islands and among U.S. citizens who live abroad. Republicans held them in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington state.

The marquee primary was in Georgia, the state that recorded the narrowest margin in 2020 when the two last competed for the presidency. It will be closely watched for their strengths and weaknesses with suburban, Black, Hispanic and other key demographics.

With Trump as the presumptive nominee, he and the Republican National Committee will now establish a joint fundraising committee, allowing the campaign to tap bigger contributions as the GOP looks to erase a fundraising deficit with Democrats. Biden and the Democratic National Committee already have that arrangement in place, and Democrats have gotten a head start in funnelling money to battleground states to build campaign infrastructure.

In a statement, Biden said he was “honoured that the broad coalition of voters representing the rich diversity of the Democratic Party across the country have put their faith in me once again to lead our party — and our country — in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever.” For his part, Trump said in a fundraising message Tuesday that the campaign had entered a new phase: “Winning the general election and firing Joe Biden!” Biden’s and Trump’s clinching of their nominations will mean it will be the first presidential election since 1956 that has featured a rematch, while also ensuring a race that will offer voters a stark choice between candidates with very different demeanours and agendas on the economy, foreign policy and hot-button domestic issues such as abortion and immigration. It also raises the spectre of Trump — who continues to make unfounded allegations that the electoral system is rigged against him — again denying the results should he lose.

Both men have overcome doubts within their parties to arrive at this point, and some of those doubts still linger. Biden is contending with questions about his age and abilities — though Democrats were bolstered by his vigorous State of the Union delivery last week — and must energise liberal and younger voters.

The president is also dealing with some protest voting for “uncommitted” among those in his party who are angry with his support for Israel’s military campaign against Hamas and the failure thus far to get a ceasefire deal in Gaza. Some activists are encouraging such a vote in Washington state on Tuesday.

Trump needs to show he can appeal to the college-educated and suburban voters who opted for Nikki Haley in the Republican primaries, while also dealing with the 91 criminal charges he faces. Those cases are related to everything from his handling of classified documents to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Facing off in Georgia over the weekend, the two previewed a general-election campaign likely to be marked by sharp insults. In Rome, Ga., Trump, 77 years old, mocked Biden’s stutter and his mental and physical health, calling Biden a “weak, angry, flailing president.” Biden, 81, in Atlanta, accused Trump of posing a threat to U.S. democracy, saying “when he says he wants to be a dictator, I believe him.” Paul Begala, a strategist for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, predicted that this general election would be “unrelentingly negative.” He noted that in Biden’s State of the Union speech, the president repeatedly went after Trump, referring to him as his predecessor. “The president has made the shift away from talking about his accomplishments toward blow-torching the other guy,” he said, adding that he thinks the president is focusing more on policy criticism rather than personal attacks. “Biden’s attacks are focused on voters and their lives.” When Trump becomes the presumptive nominee, his campaign isn’t expected to mark the occasion in any significant way. His team has increasingly focused on the general election in recent weeks, after dispatching a field that once totalled more than a dozen candidates.

Haley, his last high-profile challenger, dropped out of the race Wednesday after managing to win just one of the 15 GOP state contests held on Super Tuesday. Unlike the majority of his previous rivals, she didn’t immediately endorse him and has argued he can’t win in November.

The map expected to decide the general election is relatively small. A northern tier of states includes Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, while a southern and western one features Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona.

Biden — who has faced little serious Democratic competition — also has been focused on the general election. In 2020, Biden won 306 electoral votes, well above the 270 needed for a win and giving him a margin for error this year. He could lose Georgia, Arizona and Nevada and still win re-election by maintaining the rest of his 2020 map, including the “Blue Wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that have typically backed Democrats in recent presidential elections.

Polls have shown Biden trailing Trump in many of these states, although the incumbent’s campaign hopes its new advertising campaign and a vigorous State of the Union address will start to turn the tide.

Biden is currently on a post-State of the Union travel blitz, as is customary. He spent Tuesday in New Hampshire and will head to Michigan and Wisconsin later in the week.

Primary balloting in the suburbs of Atlanta will be among the places studied for potential general election energy and enthusiasm. Places such as Gwinnett County, a booming suburban-to-exurban area that is home to many college-educated, non-white residents, will be critical for Democratic turnout.

Though Republicans have modestly grown their support among Latino and, to a lesser degree, Black voters, Trump has driven a realignment of the nation’s voting groups that has drawn more working-class, white voters into the GOP, while driving away many suburban voters and those with college degrees. The shifts helped put Georgia, which has experienced rapid suburban population growth with new residents arriving from northern states, in play.

Suburbs around Milwaukee, a city Biden plans to visit Wednesday, also are expected to be critical. Wisconsin had the third-narrowest margin in the 2020 presidential election, after Georgia and Arizona.

“Suburban areas have always been a weak spot and we need to generate greater turnout in those areas,” said Tom Schreibel, a member of the Republican National Committee from Wisconsin. “You have people with concerns about Trump, but in the end it will be a very clear choice.”

Dow Jones