For weeks, it has become increasingly likely that U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump would face each other in the November national election in a rematch of their 2020 contest.
By Tuesday night, the rematch could become a certainty.
Both Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, were expected to sweep to victories in several low-profile state presidential primaries on Tuesday. That could assure them a majority of delegates to their respective national party conventions set for this summer, where they will be formally nominated.
If they somehow narrowly miss reaching a majority on Tuesday, either is likely to achieve it in the next set of primaries in the coming week.
Biden has faced only nominal opposition to become the Democratic nominee again.
Trump, meanwhile, has defeated several Republicans in primary elections, including former U.N. 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 in the face of Trump’s obvious hold on a large base of Republican voters.
Even without their parties’ nominations officially in hand, both candidates are in full campaign mode eight months ahead of the election, taking swipes at each other on every occasion they can.
In his State of the Union address last week, Biden disparaged “my predecessor” 13 times, never mentioning Trump by name, but painting a dystopian vision of what a second Trump presidency would look like.
Trump mocks Biden’s age, 81, even though he is only four years younger.
"I assume he's going to be the candidate," Trump said of Biden on CNBC on Monday. "I'm his only opponent other than life, life itself."
Most early national polls show Trump with a slight edge over Biden and in several of the key political battleground states that will likely determine the national outcome in the November 5 balloting. But Trump is also facing an unprecedented four criminal indictments encompassing 91 charges, with one trial set to start March 25.
Whether any of the other cases will be tried before the election is uncertain, but some voters have told pollsters that they will not vote for Trump if he is convicted of any of the charges.
The U.S. does not pick its presidents by the national popular vote but rather in state-by-state elections in each of the 50 states and subsequent voting in the Electoral College.
With a couple of exceptions, the winner of each state’s vote wins all its Electoral College votes, with the largest states holding the most electoral votes and the most sway in the national outcome.
Biden entered the Tuesday party primary 102 delegates short of the 1,968 needed to formally become the presumptive Democratic nominee. There were 254 Democratic delegates at stake in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state, in addition to party-run contests for the Northern Mariana Islands and Democrats Abroad.
Trump was 137 delegates short of the 1,215 needed to win the Republican nomination. There were 161 Republican delegates at stake on Tuesday in Georgia, Mississippi, Washington state and Hawaii.
With a strong showing, Trump could sweep all the delegates in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state. Hawaii allocates delegates proportionally so other candidates still on the ballot opposing Trump could win a few delegates, even with a small share of the vote.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
