United States President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, are set for an election rematch in November after clinching their respective parties’ nominations.
Primary elections in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington on Tuesday handed Biden the Democratic nomination and Trump the nod from the Republican Party.
Biden, who had no serious competition in his party, reached the required 1,968-delegate threshold to be nominated while Trump, whose last rival Nikki Haley withdrew from the race last week, also passed the mark of 1,215 delegates needed. Both will be officially nominated at their parties’ conventions in August and July, respectively.
The widely expected results set up the first US presidential election rematch in nearly 70 years, as well as a contest between two candidates that opinion polls suggest that many voters do not want.
At 81, Biden is already the oldest president in US history, while the 77-year-old Trump is facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases, involving his handling of classified documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, among other alleged crimes.
Their rematch will almost certainly deepen the country’s political and cultural divides over the eight-month grind that lies ahead until the November 5 election.
In a statement, Biden celebrated the nomination while casting Trump as a serious threat to democracy, accusing him of “running a campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America”.
Trump, in a video posted on social media, celebrated what he called “a great day of victory”.
“But now we have to get back to work because we have the worst president in the history of our country,” Trump said of Biden. “So, we’re not going to take time to celebrate. We’ll celebrate in eight months when the election is over.”
