Trump clinches Republican nomination for president, secures enough delegates for 2024
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday clinched the 2024 Republican nomination for president, eclipsing the 1,215 delegate threshold after wins in the Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state primaries.
The ex-commander in chief is also expected to win Hawaii’s GOP caucus, which was held Tuesday.
Trump, 77, dominated the GOP primaries and caucuses, losing only one state – Vermont – and the District of Columbia to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who suspended her campaign following her disappointing Super Tuesday performance last week.
He kicked off the 2024 presidential primary and caucus cycle with eight straight victories between Jan. 15 and March 2.
Trump trounced the GOP field without ever stepping foot on a debate stage, refusing to participate in any of the five Republican National Committee sanctioned forums this cycle because of the double-digit polling advantage, which he held over his primary opponents since his Nov. 15, 2022, campaign launch.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, long seen as the most viable Republican alternative to the 45th president, came within 13 percentage points of matching Trump’s national support in the polls in late February 2023 but slumped after GOP voters rallied around the former president after he was hit with the first of four criminal indictments.
The presumptive GOP nominee now enters the general election phase of his presidential campaign facing 91 felony counts — but with the support of nearly 80% of Republican voters.
With his first criminal trial slated to start in Manhattan on March 25, where he faces 34 charges related to alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, Trump will likely be forced to juggle his general election campaign schedule along with courtroom appearances.
Trump also has impending state and federal trials in Georgia and Washington, DC, related to allegations that he interfered in the 2020 presidential election, and another federal trial in Florida over his handling of classified documents after his presidency.
Trump, hoping to become the first former commander in chief since Grover Cleveland to win a second non-consecutive White House term, stands to face President Biden in November.
The 2020 general election rematch will be the first since 1956, when President Dwight Eisenhower squared off against Adlai Stevenson in a replay of the 1952 presidential contest.
A recent survey from the New York Times and Siena College found that Trump, benefitting from a boost in support from black and Hispanic voters, would handily win a rematch against Biden – 48% to 43%.
The poll also showed Trump maintaining 97% of his core of supporters who backed his 2020 campaign while picking up 10% of former Biden voters.
Several surveys also show Trump defeating Biden in a number key battleground states.
Trump is besting Biden among registered voters in Arizona (49%-43%), Michigan (46%-44%), Nevada (48%-42%), North Carolina (50%-41%), Pennsylvania (49%-43%) and Wisconsin (46%-42%), according to a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult swing-state voter survey released late last month.
The latest polling out of Georgia, which Biden won in 2020, shows Trump with an edge over the incumbent as well.
Trump leads Biden 46% to 42% in the Peach State, which marks a decline from his six-point lead about a month ago, according to a poll from Emerson College Polling/The Hill released Tuesday.
Biden, 81, has been mired in record-low approval ratings and has lost significant levels of support among key Democratic voting blocs, including blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, amid concerns over the economy, border security and his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
The president, the oldest man to ever serve in the Oval Office, has also been rocked by a scathing Justice Department report that raised doubts about his mental acuity.
In the report released last month, Special Counsel Robert Hur defended his decision not to charge Biden related to his retention of classified documents after the vice presidency because he would be seen by jurors as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden reached the 1,968 delegate threshold needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for president on Tuesday as well, with wins in the Georgia, Mississippi, Washington and Northern Mariana Islands Democratic primaries.
The incumbent embarrassingly lost the American Samoa Democratic caucus on Super Tuesday – Biden’s only defeat this cycle – to previously unknown candidate Jason Palmer.
