Following their predictable victories in Tuesday's separate primaries, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump confirmed their presidential nominations for the 2024 election and are now the "virtual nominees" of their respective parties.
Biden, who had 1,872 delegates as of Tuesday morning, secured an early majority of the 108 delegates contested in Georgia, surpassing the threshold of 1,968 representatives needed to secure the nomination.
Meanwhile, former President Trump confirmed his nomination late after his victory in Washington was confirmed, and he finally surpassed the 1,215-delegate threshold.
🚨 | Steve Kornacki after the Democratic primary results in Georgia:
🗣️ "To the extent there was any remaining suspense, it has been eliminated: Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee." pic.twitter.com/KpBeuDJi0t
— VOZ (@Voz_US) March 12, 2024
The nomination of President Biden, who was coming off a 14 out of 15 landslide last week on Super Tuesday, was never really in doubt in electoral terms, as polls and primaries made it clear that Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and self-help guru Marianne Williamson did not have the strength to attract more than a fraction of the vote.
However, the president nonetheless faced a complex primary, with a lot of noise surrounding his campaign, since according to various polls, a good part of his supporters or Democratic voters doubt his mental faculties, his age, his foreign policy, his handling of the economy and also his strength as a candidate.
The president also saw how Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a political scion and environmental lawyer, campaigned within the Democratic Party only to drop out of the race for the party's nomination and run as an independent.
Now the polls show Kennedy Jr. as a probable obstacle for Biden, as a handful of Democratic votes could go to the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy, opening up a clear opportunity for former President Trump, who swept nearly all of his party's primaries.
This primary campaign served to demonstrate that within the GOP, the most popular politician, by far, continues to be former President Trump, who crushed all his political rivals in this election, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, the rival who put up the biggest fight for the Republican nominee.
Now that Trump has secured the delegates needed to be the nominee, the Republican National Committee (RNC) can officially focus on fundraising around the candidacy of the former president, who months ago had refused to be called a "virtual candidate" by the committee amid financial problems and a donor drain.
