With a slate of wins in several states Tuesday, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have clinched their respective parties’ 2024 nominations—a widely expected outcome which sets the pair up for a rematch of the closely-contested 2020 race.
Biden’s projected win in Georgia early Tuesday night pushed his delegate count past the 1,968 needed to win the majority. A statement to The Daily Beast from Vice President Kamala Harris after scoring the nomination said: “From the start, the President and I never took this re-nomination process for granted. We have campaigned in earnest because we know doing so is an important step towards earning reelection and will help us mobilize the voters we need in November.
“With his State of the Union speech last week, President Biden passionately presented our alternative vision. We will reduce costs for families, make housing more affordable, and raise the minimum wage. We will restore Roe, protect voting rights, and finally address our gun violence epidemic. The American people overwhelmingly support this agenda over Donald Trump's extreme ideas, and that will propel our campaign in the months ahead.”
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A campaign video posted on Biden’s social media shows the president urging voters to “defend democracy.” He adds: “This is the time to choose, so let us choose the truth. Let us choose America.”
The news wasn’t exactly a surprise for those watching the race closely—Biden faced little opposition on his march to victory, with the few candidates that chose to run against the incumbent, including Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and self-help guru Marianne Williamson never garnering more than a small fraction of the vote.
In fact, in several states the No. 2 position went not to a person but to “uncommitted,” with many activists organizing to use the ballot line as a protest against the Biden Administration’s support for Israel’s brutal bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which has already killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to recent estimates.
Trump, however, had to wait until just after 11 p.m. EST to learn that he had become the presumptive nominee.
It took projected wins in three states Tuesday to put Trump’s delegate total above the 1,215 needed to win the Republican nomination: Georgia, Mississippi and Washington.
Similarly to Biden, the outcome was never in doubt. Earlier in the day Trump acknowledged that the 2020 rematch seemed preordained—saying “I’m his only opponent other than life, life itself.”
Both men steamrolled through primary season with scant competition—but candidates face a number of challenges in the months to come, as Biden and Trump similarly face flagging approval numbers and concerns over their ability to govern at an advanced age.
Trump has also been indicted on 91 counts across four criminal cases in multiple jurisdictions, adding financial and scheduling constraints to an already jam-packed general election season.
In a statement posted to his Truth Social platform late Tuesday, Trump said it was his “great honor to be representing the Republican Party as its Presidential Nominee.”
He also blasted his opponent as the “Worst, Most Incompetent, Corrupt, and Destructive President in the History of the United States.
“We are now, under Crooked Joe Biden, a Third World Nation, which uses the Injustice System to go after his political opponent, ME!” he added.
“But fear not, we will not fail, we will take back our once great Country, put AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN - GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. November 5th will go down as the most important day in the history of our Country! GOD BLESS AMERICA.”
