U.S President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump are set for an election rematch in November after they secured their parties’ presidential nominations with impressive wins in another round of key primaries.
Biden, 81, won the Democratic presumptive nomination on Tuesday after winning the presidential primaries in Georgia, as the number of delegates in his kitty crossed the halfway mark of 3,933 pledged delegates. A total of 1,968 delegates were required to win the Democratic nomination.
Four states- Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, Washington-one American territory and Democrats living abroad held their primaries on Tuesday.
Biden would formally be declared the party’s nomination during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
Trump, 77, reached the 1,215 delegates necessary with an allocation of delegates from Washington state.
Trump will be officially nominated at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this July.
He will lead the Republican Party in a third consecutive presidential election after clinching the nomination Tuesday.
Their rematch, long anticipated, but hardly clamoured for, is broadly expected to mirror the 2020 campaign, though Trump will run this time under the spectre of 91 felony charges.
Trump is scheduled to become the first former American president to go on trial in a criminal case on March 25 in New York, where he faces charges he falsified business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star.
This would be the first presidential rematch since 1956.
Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 November elections, an outcome still challenged by the Republican leader.
Trump has defeated several Republicans in primary elections, including Indian-origin former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Other candidates, including Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, dropped out months ago for lack of voter support.
Trump remains very popular with the Republican voter base, which has propelled him to victory in primary after primary over well-funded rivals.
His campaign for a second term in the White House has zeroed in on stricter immigration laws, including a pledge to “seal the border” and implement “record-setting” deportations.
Trump has also vowed to fight crime, boost domestic energy production, tax imports, end the war in Ukraine and resume an “America first” approach to global affairs.
