COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have officially secured the requisite numbers of delegates to be considered their parties' presumptive nominees.
It was a foreseeable outcome. Biden faced token opposition in the Democratic primary. Several high-profile Republicans ran against Trump but didn't come close to knocking him off course in his third straight Republican bid.
Here is a look at what that means, what's changed, and what still needs to happen before Biden and Trump can drop “presumptive” and just be their parties' official standard-bearers:
‘Presumptive nominee:’ What does it mean?
The Associated Press only uses the “presumptive nominee” designation once a candidate has captured the number of delegates needed to win a majority vote at the national party convention this summer. For Republicans, that number this year is 1.215. On the Democratic side of things, it's 1,968.
The marker essentially ends the presidential primary season, though both Biden and Trump have been largely focusing their energies on each other for months already.
Do the political parties function any differently?
Sort of.
Generally, the national Democratic and Republican parties start coordinating directly with their presumptive nominees once their status is clear, although there have been some exceptions.
Last week, the Republican National Committee ushered in new leadership handpicked by Trump, in the form of a new chairman, co-chair and party chief of staff. Trump's installed leaders then moved to fire dozens of RNC staff.
After Trump won both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — but still faced GOP opponents — an RNC member who is a longtime Trump ally floated a resolution that would have allowed the party to consider him its “presumptive nominee” and allowed some of that coordination earlier.
Trump actually spoke out against the measure — although he said it likely would have succeeded — which was ultimately withdrawn.
As for the Democratic National Committee, Biden is the de facto leader of the party, although any official leadership changes have to go through structured channels. During the 2020 campaign, the DNC shuffled its leadership and entered into a joint fundraising agreement with Biden in April, even though the candidate didn’t clinch the Democratic nomination until June.
When do presumptive nominees become official?
A presidential candidate doesn’t officially become the Republican or Democratic nominee until winning the vote on the floor of the nominating convention, which takes place this summer. Delegates' casting of votes is mostly a ceremonial procedure, but it hasn’t always been this way.
Decades ago, presidential candidates might have run in primaries and caucuses, but the eventual nominees weren’t known until delegates and party bosses hashed things out themselves at the conventions.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump clinched their parties' presidential nominations Tuesday with decisive victories in a slate of low-profile primaries, setting up a general election rematch that many voters do not want.
The outcome of contests across Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state was never in doubt. Neither Biden, a Democrat, nor Trump, a Republican, faced major opposition. But the magnitude of their wins gave each man the delegate majority he needed to claim his party's nomination at the summertime national conventions.
Not even halfway through the presidential primary calendar, Tuesday marked a crystalizing moment for a nation uneasy with its choices in 2024.
There is no longer any doubt that the fall election will feature a rematch between two flawed and unpopular presidents. At 81, Biden is already the oldest president in U.S. history, while the 77-year-old Trump is facing decades in prison as a defendant in four criminal cases. Their rematch — the first featuring two U.S. presidents since 1912 — will almost certainly deepen the nation’s searing political and cultural divides over the eight-month grind that lies ahead.
In a statement, Biden celebrated the nomination while casting Trump as a serious threat to democracy.
Trump, Biden said, “is running a campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America.”
He continued, “I am honored 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.”
Trump, in a video posted on social media, celebrated what he called “a great day of victory.”
“But now we have to get back to work because we have the worst president in the history of our country,” Trump said of Biden. “So, we're not going to take time to celebrate. We'll celebrate in eight months when the election is over."
Both candidates dominated Tuesday's primaries in swing-state Georgia, deep-red Mississippi and Democratic-leaning Washington. Trump also won Hawaii's Republican caucus.
Despite their tough talk, the road ahead will not be easy for either presumptive nominee.
Trump is facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases involving his handling of classified documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, among other alleged crimes. He’s also facing increasingly pointed questions about his policy plans and relationships with some of the world's most dangerous dictators. Trump met privately on Friday with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has rolled back democracy in his country.
Biden, who would be 86 years old at the end of his next term, is working to assure a skeptical electorate that he’s still physically and mentally able to thrive in the world’s most important job. Voters in both parties are unhappy with his handling of immigration and inflation.
And he's dealing with additional dissension within his party’s progressive base, furious that he hasn’t done more to stop Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Activists and religious leaders in Washington encouraged Democrats to vote “uncommitted” to signal their outrage.
In Seattle, 26-year-old voter Bella Rivera said they hoped their “uncommitted” vote would would serve as a wakeup call for the Democratic party.
“If you really want our votes, if you want to win this election, you’re going to have to show a little bit more either support of Palestinian liberation — that’s something that’s very important to us — and ceasing funds to Israel,” said Rivera, a preschool teacher who uses they/them pronouns.
Almost 3,000 miles away in Georgia, retiree Donna Graham said she would have preferred another Republican nominee over Trump, but she said there's no way she'd ever vote for Biden in the general election.
“He wasn’t my first choice, but he’s the next best thing,” Graham said of Trump. “It’s sad that it’s the same old matchup as four years ago."
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