CV NEWS FEED // President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both clinched their parties’ nominations in Tuesday’s primaries, setting up the long-anticipated rematch of the 2020 election this November.
Shortly after polls closed in the Mississippi primary, Biden had enough delegates to become the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee. Trump followed hours later with a commanding win in Washington state that notched him the requisite number of delegates as well.
Trump and Biden both ran the table in Tuesday’s contests. Trump won nearly 85% of the vote in the Georgia primary and nearly 94% in Mississippi. With 80% of the vote in, Trump looks to have won just under three-quarters of the Republican primary vote in Washington state.
On the Democratic side, Biden won the Georgia primary with 95% of the vote. With 80% of the vote reporting in Washington, his vote share in the state was just shy of 87%. He was uncontested in Mississippi.
The second consecutive showdown between the two men will mark the seventh presidential election rematch in American history and the first since Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower squared off against Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson in 1956.
The 2024 election will also be the third time in American history – after the elections of 1892 and 1912 – in which an incumbent president faces his predecessor in a general election.
Specifically, in 1892, former President Grover Cleveland defeated incumbent Benjamin Harrison (who had defeated him four years earlier) to reclaim the White House. Now, Trump will look to join Cleveland as the second president elected to two non-consecutive terms.
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Going into Tuesday, both Biden and Trump were running virtually unopposed.
Biden’s long-shot intraparty challenger Rep. Dean Phillips, D-MN, dropped out of the race and endorsed him last Wednesday. As a result, author Marianne Williamson remained the president’s only noteworthy Democratic opponent at the time he clinched the party’s nomination.
Also last Wednesday, former ambassador Nikki Haley – Trump’s last remaining opponent for the Republican nomination – exited the race on the heels of a dismal Super Tuesday showing.
ABC News reported that Trump’s string of dominating performances en route to becoming the presumptive Republican nominee cemented what was “one of the shortest highly contested presidential primaries since the modern nomination process took shape in the 1970s.”
The Hill noted late Tuesday night that “Trump is expected to notch at least 1,215 delegates — the minimum number needed to secure the Republican nod.” The already withdrawn Haley is in a distant second with only 94 delegates.
As The New York Post described,
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.
Also according to the Post, a New York Times / Siena poll “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,” the Post indicated.
The poll found that Trump is leading Biden among Hispanic voters by a convincing six points. No Republican presidential nominee has won a majority of the Hispanic vote in American history.
>> POLLS SHOW BIDEN LOSING SUPPORT, TRAILING TRUMP <<
CatholicVote previously reported:
Trump lost the Hispanic vote to Biden by 21 points in 2020, per the Pew Research Center. However, this was a substantially smaller margin than in 2016, when Hillary Clinton carried the Hispanics over Trump by 38 points.
In 2012, Obama bested Republican challenger Mitt Romney among Hispanics by 44 points.
In an op-ed for Wall Street Journal earlier this month, Jason L. Riley wrote that Trump is “pick[ing] up support from minority voters because they did better in his economy.”
Per the Post, a February Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found that Trump is leading Biden in the key battleground states of Arizona (by six points), Michigan (by two points), Nevada (by six points), North Carolina (by nine points), Pennsylvania (by six points), and Wisconsin (by four points).
An even more recent poll shows Trump leading Biden by four points in Georgia.
Biden and Trump will formally accept each of their parties’ nominations at their respective national conventions this summer.
The Republican National Convention will be held from July 15 to 18 in Milwaukee, WI, while the Democratic National Convention will take place from August 19 to 22 in Chicago, IL.
