CNN
—
Joe Biden has officially won the Democratic nomination for president, CNN projects, allowing him to fully engage in the general election campaign as he tries to win a second term. His Republican opponent, Donald Trump, is sure to defend his party's presidential nomination on Tuesday.
Democrats and Republicans vote in presidential elections in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington. On Tuesday, Hawaii Republicans hold caucuses, while voting ends for the Democratic Party's official arm of the Democratic Party for Americans Living Abroad. Biden was the winner of the Democratic primary in the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands earlier on Tuesday.
Last week's Super Tuesday short-term elections saw Biden and Trump dominate the map, with both of them poised to win the majority of delegates needed to crown their parties' presumptive nominees. Their rematch — long-awaited but not much hyped — is widely expected to mirror the 2020 campaign, though this time Trump will run under 91 felony charges related to allegations he conspired to overturn his 2020 election loss; played a leading role in the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021; illegally taking classified documents from the White House; and covered up payments to an adult film star before the 2016 election.
Although he now has a record of accomplishments and misdeeds to sway voters, Biden has so far run a similar campaign for 2020 — appealing to Trump's authoritarian behavior and concerns about the middle-class economy. Unlike Trump, the president has never faced a serious, well-funded primary challenger, and Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, his lone rival for elected office, backed out of Biden last week.
(Writer Marianne Williamson, who did not suspend her campaign until late last month, is running against venture capitalist Jason Palmer, who defeated Biden in the American Samoa caucuses last week.)
Biden's main opposition came not from either candidate, but from a general internal party concern about his age and anger among progressives over the administration's anti-Israel support of Hamas in Gaza. The president also came under some scrutiny following the release of special counsel Robert Harr's report, which concluded that Biden mishandled and improperly disclosed classified information after he left the vice presidency. But Harr, who testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, said he did not believe there was enough evidence to charge Biden with a crime and no charges were filed.
On the GOP side, Trump has long been seen as the prohibitive favorite despite competition from an array of GOP challengers, including governors, senators, right-wing provocateurs and even his own former vice president, Mike Pence.
The latest to capitulate is former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the Republican race last week after losing on Super Tuesday but not endorsing Trump on the way out. Haley said the former president “needs to get the votes of people in our party and beyond who don't support him.” Like Biden, Trump needs to match the questionable parts of his own base with past support.
While there's still a bit of drama in the end, the primaries in Georgia will provide a test of courage for both candidates ahead of their expected November showdown.
In 2020, Biden won the state by less than 12,000 votes — the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992. Trump's defeat touched off alleged efforts by him and his allies to subvert the election result. Those efforts are now wrapped up in a broader conspiracy charge that is being tried in Fulton County, where most of Atlanta is located.
Both candidates spent parts of their weekend in the Beach State, where they held rival rallies on Saturday — about 60 miles apart.
“My life has taught me to embrace the future of freedom and democracy,” Biden said at a rally in Atlanta. “But we all know that Donald Trump sees a different America, an American story of hate, vengeance and revenge. It's not me, it's not you.
Trump, during a visit to Rome, Georgia, described Biden as an “angry, dark, hateful freak” of the President's State of the Union address on Thursday. Trump continued his criticism of the Democrats' handling of the southern border and the economy.
Biden has been on a post-Union tour of swing states, first going to Pennsylvania on Friday before Georgia and then to New Hampshire on Monday. Trump is headed to Dayton, Ohio, this weekend, where he will hold a rally for businessman Bernie Moreno, who has become his endorsement candidate in the GOP primary to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. The Ohio election is seen as critical to Democratic hopes for the Senate.
