US President, Joe Biden and rival Donald Trump have each won enough delegates to clinch their party nominations in the 2024 presidential race assuring a rematch between the pair and setting up one of the longest election campaigns in US history.
The results in four statewide elections on Tuesday, March 12 were essentially a foregone conclusion as incumbent Biden and former president Trump had already seen off all primary challengers.
Biden became his party’s presumptive nominee when he won enough delegates in Georgia.
That pushed Biden’s count past 1,968 for a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this August, where his nomination will be made official.
Meanwhile, after securing wins in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state, Trump surpassed the 1,215-delegate threshold needed to become the presumptive Republican nominee.
Trump will formally accept the nomination at the Republican National Convention in July, by which point he could be in the unheralded position of being both a presidential candidate and a convicted felon.
Trump has been indicted in four separate criminal investigations and his first trial, which centres on payments made to a porn actress, is set to begin 25 March in New York City.
However, he has insisted in a victory statement that the Republican Party is strong and united behind him.
“We are now, under Crooked Joe Biden, a Third World Nation, which uses the Injustice System to go after his political opponent, ME!” he wrote on his Truth Social media platform.
“But fear not, we will not fail, we will take back our once great Country.”
Biden, who mounted his first bid for president 37 years ago, did not face any serious Democratic challengers to his run for re-election at age 81.
As the pair now head for a rematch of their 2020 showdown, Biden attacked Trump in a statement.
“I am 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,” Biden said.
He hit out at Trump’s “campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution”.