President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday secured the delegates needed to clinch their parties’ presidential nominations, The Associated Press reported, cementing a general election rematch in the works in November.

Both the men and their campaigns have long anticipated this moment. Biden faced only token opposition during the Democratic primaries, as is typical for a sitting president, while Trump was his party’s dominant frontrunner for months.

Their November clash began to look even more likely after Trump won a decisive victory in Iowa in January. His victory cleared the field of all but one Republican rival and put him on a glide path to his party’s nomination. His last remaining primary challenger, Nikki Haley, suspended her campaign last week, clearing a path that was already remarkably free of obstacles.

The Associated Press named Mr. Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee after predicting his victory in Georgia, while Mr. Trump was identified as the presumptive Republican nominee after winning Republican elections in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state.

Tuesday’s results paved the way for a 2024 general election campaign that, at just under eight months, will be one of the longest in modern American history and mark the country’s first presidential rematch in nearly 70 years.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden had already shifted their focus from the primaries. With the president facing no major challengers, Mr. Biden’s campaign speeches highlighted not only his record but also the danger he sees posed by Mr. Trump.

In a statement, Mr. Biden said he was honored that Democratic voters “have once again placed their trust in me to lead our party — and our country — at a moment when the threat from Trump is greater than ever.”

And even as Trump was busy defeating his Republican rivals, his campaign speeches focused on criticism of Biden and his insistence that the primaries needed to end quickly so that his party could focus its energy and resources on November.

Neither man will be formally selected until his party’s conventions this summer. But Mr. Biden has already tapped into the Democratic National Committee’s political and financial apparatus. And last week, the Trump campaign effectively took over the Republican National Committee, imposing mass layoffs on Monday as it reshaped the party’s operations.

That Trump managed to secure the Republican nomination quite quickly shows the hold he has maintained on the party and its conservative base, despite his 2020 loss and the failed attempts to reverse it; a series of disappointing midterm losses by candidates he supported; and his 91 felony charges in four criminal cases.

The former president won nearly every nominating contest that awarded delegates, with Ms. Haley only securing victories in Vermont and Washington, D.C., where she became the first woman ever to win a Republican presidential primary, or caucus.

But Trump’s rapid path to the nomination also reflects his and his political team’s attempt to bend the rules around primaries and delegates in his favor. The rules that states use to award delegates to particular candidates are set by state party officials, and Mr. Trump and his advisers built relationships with those officials to smooth his path.

In one crucial example, Mr. Trump’s campaign worked to shape California’s rules, leading party officials there to adopt a “winner take all” system, awarding the state’s delegates to a candidate who receives 50 percent of the vote achieved statewide. That threshold favored Mr. Trump, the only candidate polling there at that level.

Trump ultimately won the California primaries last week, an important moment in the delegate race. California’s 169 delegates gave him 14 percent of the 1,215 delegates needed to win the nomination.

Similarly, Mr. Biden faced little opposition during his march to the nomination, dominating every contest by wide margins. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political scion and environmental lawyer, dropped out of the Democratic nominating contest to run as an independent. Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota and self-help guru Marianne Williamson never received more than a fraction of the votes.

The strength of both men in their primaries could belie weaknesses within their coalitions that could spell trouble for them in November, especially considering that the 2020 election was decided by narrow margins in just a handful of states.

In some places where Trump won Republican elections convincingly, he still performed relatively weaker among voters in suburban areas and among those who identify as moderates or independents. Such groups, whose support Mr. Trump lost in 2020, could be crucial in closely contested battleground states.

Mr. Biden, for his part, faced a campaign in several primary states urging voters to protest his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza by voting “uncommitted.” Losing the support of those voters in the fall could weaken the coalition that helped Mr. Biden oust Mr. Trump in 2020.

During Biden’s first term, voters have questioned his age and record, even as economic indicators improve. The president has shown weakness toward young people and black and Hispanic voters, key groups in the coalition that propelled him to victory last time.

Mr. Biden does viewed unfavorably by a majority of Americans — a precarious position for a president seeking re-election — but that includes Mr. Trump.

Both campaigns have argued that voters who supported them in previous years will return to them as the choice becomes clearer.

Mr. Biden and his allied groups also have a significant financial advantage over Mr. Trump, whose legal bills are taking their toll.

With Tuesday’s victories, Trump blocked the nomination before any of his four criminal cases go to trial. His criminal case in Manhattan, which stems from a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star, will go to trial on March 25 and is expected to last six weeks.

Trump’s lawyers had argued unsuccessfully that the timing would disrupt his presidential campaign, pointing in part to the primary calendar.

More recently, Mr. Trump’s legal team has made a last-ditch effort to delay the trial before it begins. In court papers made public on Monday, his lawyers argued that the trial should not take place until the Supreme Court decides whether Mr Trump is immune from prosecution in his criminal case in Washington, which involves allegations that he plotted to influence the election of Undo 2020.

It is unlikely that the judge in the New York case, Juan M. Merchan, will grant the request.

There’s no doubt that President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump will be their respective parties’ nominees, and neither will face credible challengers, but Tuesday’s primaries could be the ones that make it official.

A strong performance today could officially give Mr. Trump a majority of delegates in the Republican National Convention, and Mr. Biden could do the same on the Democratic side.

Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington state vote on the Republican side. Voting for Democrats are Georgia, Mississippi, Washington and the Northern Mariana Islands, and Democrats abroad will complete their weeklong trial.

Republicans in the Northern Mariana Islands will vote on Friday, followed by Republicans in Guam on Saturday.

Most states voting this week are holding presidential elections only, with primaries for Congress, governorships and other ballots scheduled for the spring or summer. Mississippi is an exception: the primaries in the Senate and House of Representatives will also be up for vote there on Tuesday.

A revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard,” starring Nicole Scherzinger as a former movie idol who descends into madness, received the most nominations on Tuesday for this year’s Olivier Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.

The show ran and will continue to run at the Savoy Theater in London transfer to Broadway this yearis in the running for eleven awards – two more than any other play or musical – including best musical revival, best actress in a musical for Scherzinger and best director for Jamie Lloyd.

When the production premiered last fall, it impressed London’s often demanding theater critics. Matt Wolf, writing in The New York Times, said that the production, like its main character, was “a bit crazy: reckless and daring, stretching the source material to its limits and beyond.”

“I can’t imagine any other show in London generating similar buzz this season,” Wolf added.

Lloyd’s maverick production features handheld cameras used to spotlight characters’ emotions at crucial moments. Although critics appreciated the technique, Lloyd faces stiff competition in the best director category.

The other nominees include Sam Mendes for “The Motive and the Cue,” which debuted at the National Theater last spring. Jack Thorne’s play dramatizes a fraught backstage relationship between Richard Burton and John Gielgud as they rehearse a Broadway production.

Rupert Goold is also nominated for best director for ‘Dear England’, a play about the English national football team that also played at the National Theater and transferred to the West End. That show earned nine nominations.

Despite mixed reviews, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a theatrical prequel to the Netflix show playing at the Phoenix Theater, received five nominations, including best new entertainment or comedy. Houman Barekat, reviewing the production in The New York Times, said it was “exactly what you’d expect from a show co-produced by Netflix: cheap thrills, expensively made.”

This year’s nominations have a touch of TV glamor in many categories. Among the nominees for best actress in a play are Sarah Jessica Parker for “Plaza Suite,” which runs through April 13 at the Savoy Theater, and Sarah Snook (of “Succession”) for a one-woman film “ The Picture Of Dorian Gray ” at the Theater Royal Haymarket, until May 11.

They will compete for that title against Laura Donnelly for “The Hills Of California” at the Harold Pinter Theater, Sheridan Smith for “Shirley Valentine” at the Duke Of York’s Theater, and Sophie Okonedo for “Medea” at @sohoplace.

Best Actor nominees include Andrew Scott for one-man film “Vanya” at the Duke of York’s Theater, and James Norton for his performance in “A Little Life” at the Harold Pinter Theater. The other nominees are Joseph Fiennes for ‘Dear England’, Mark Gatiss for ‘The Motive And The Cue’ and David Tennant for ‘Macbeth’ at the Donmar Warehouse.

The winners of this year’s awards are expected to be announced at a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London on April 14.

Super Tuesday will not make President Biden or former President Donald J. Trump a presumptive party nominee, as defined by locking up a majority of nationally available delegates.

But they’ll probably get pretty close and set themselves up to mathematically secure the nominations over the next two weeks.

On the Republican side, Trump needs 1,215 delegates, and currently has 273. With 854 delegates available on Tuesday in the 15 states that hold Republican elections, he can’t reach that threshold even if he wins them all. There are still nine delegates available from American Samoa on Friday, but he will not be there either.

But if he gets the lion’s share of delegates up for grabs, as polls likely suggest, he will be in position to secure the nomination on March 12 (when the Republican primary takes place in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington State). or on March 19 (when Voting in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio).

On the Democratic side, Mr. Biden needs 1,968 delegates, and currently has 206. He cannot secure his nomination on March 12 even if he takes over the administration, but he is poised to do so on March 19.

That it is mathematically possible for Mr. Trump to reach the threshold before Mr. Biden offers no insight into their respective strengths within their parties. That timeline is simply the result of the different processes and delegation allocations by Republicans and Democrats.

Super Tuesday will not make President Biden or former President Donald J. Trump a presumptive party nominee, as defined by locking up a majority of nationally available delegates.

But they’ll probably get pretty close and set themselves up to mathematically secure the nominations over the next two weeks.

On the Republican side, Trump needs 1,215 delegates, and currently has 273. With 854 delegates available on Tuesday in the 15 states that hold Republican elections, he can’t reach that threshold even if he wins them all. There are still nine delegates available from American Samoa on Friday, but he will not be there either.

But if he gets the lion’s share of delegates up for grabs, as polls likely suggest, he will be in position to secure the nomination on March 12 (when the Republican primary takes place in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington State). or on March 19 (when Voting in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio).

On the Democratic side, Mr. Biden needs 1,968 delegates, and currently has 206. He cannot secure his nomination on March 12 even if he takes over the administration, but he is poised to do so on March 19.

That it is mathematically possible for Mr. Trump to reach the threshold before Mr. Biden offers no insight into their respective strengths within their parties. That timeline is simply the result of the different processes and delegation allocations by Republicans and Democrats.

For months, Senate Republicans have been working with Democrats on a deal they have described as a unique opportunity for a conservative border security bill, and for weeks they have hinted that they are tantalizingly close to an agreement.

Their timing couldn't have been worse.

As former President Donald J. Trump moves closer to becoming his party's presidential nominee and Republican lawmakers consolidate behind him, he is wielding a heavier hand than at any time since leaving office over his party's agenda in Congress. His outspoken opposition to the emerging border compromise has all but destroyed the measure's chances in a divided Congress as he once again puts his own hardline immigration policies at the center of his presidential campaign.

His shadow has always hung large over the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which has opened congressional investigations to defend him, launched an impeachment inquiry into his chief rival and passed legislation to counter the harsh immigration policies he imposed. to recover. But as Trump moves toward the party's 2024 nomination, his influence over the legislative agenda on Capitol Hill is expanding.

His “America First” approach to foreign policy has already helped undermine Republican Party support for sending aid to Ukraine for its war against Russian aggression, calling into question the fate of that money . That prompted Republicans to demand a crackdown on the borders in exchange for further funding for Kiev, a compromise that Trump has now rejected. He regularly consults with the inexperienced chairman Mike Johnson, giving his opinion on policy and politics. And his uncompromising approach has emboldened copycat politicians in Congress, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, who are helping fuel an ongoing gridlock over government spending.

For a Congress that has been struggling for more than a year with the bare minimum of legislation, Trump's dominance among Republicans is yet another obstacle to the functioning of the institution in an election year when his name will likely appear on the ballot.

Trump burst onto the national political stage in 2015 with a dark warning about dangerous immigrants invading the country's southern border and a slogan that outlasted them all in “Build the Wall.” More than eight years later, he rails against compromise, saying he won't take action at the border “unless we get EVERYTHING it takes to stop the INVASION.”

With more than half of Senate Republicans now officially backing Trump's bid for president, these pleas are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore as talk from West Palm Beach.

On Wednesday, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader and champion of the nascent bipartisan border deal, acknowledged as much. He privately told Republicans that Trump's growing influence has complicated the politics of the border, dividing Republicans against each other on an issue that once united the party.

Republicans are “in a quandary,” McConnell said Wednesday during a closed-door meeting, according to lawmakers present. What was supposed to be a sweetener for conservatives opposed to sending tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine had become as politically treacherous territory as foreign aid itself, he acknowledged. Mr. McConnell himself sees the border deal as less important than sending military aid to Ukraine.

On Thursday, after members grew concerned that Mr. McConnell's message sounded the death knell for a potential deal, he made clear at a second meeting that he was still making progress on the border-Ukraine package. Still, the road is more treacherous than last year, before Trump started winning nominating contests.

Senators have been working on a border deal since just before Thanksgiving. But as the complicated talks continued, Trump began rallying delegates and pushing for the party to unite around him and his agenda. His allies in Congress are calling on their colleagues to treat him as the party's de facto leader and adhere to his policies.

Mr. Trump and Republicans in the House of Representatives want stricter immigration measures that have no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or being signed by President Biden. These include an end to parole allowing migrants to temporarily live and work in the United States without a visa while they await the outcome of their immigration claims, and a revival of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which blocked their entry and kept them forced them to wait elsewhere.

Trump's influence over the agenda in Congress has sometimes been exaggerated, but he has always had far more power to derail matters than to help lawmakers find consensus. He was unable to help his chosen candidate for speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, across the finish line in October after, for example, Kevin McCarthy was removed from the post. But he had the ability to undermine the bid of a lawmaker he opposed, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, with one mocking social media post.

Mr. McCarthy worked hard last year to keep Mr. Trump quiet as he negotiated a deal with Mr. Biden to avoid a federal debt default, aware that Mr. Trump had the power to push away some critical Republican votes to drag when he railed against it. . Mr. McCarthy was able to pass it with the support of a majority of the Republican Party, in part because Mr. Trump waited until it was signed to criticize it.

But Trump wasn't winning the nominating contests then, and austerity has never been the animating issue of his political identity.

Attacking Mr. Biden's handling of the border is already a key part of Mr. Trump's campaign. He has accused Mr. Biden of implementing an “open border” policy that allows terrorists and fentanyl to flow into the country, while promising to build “even more walls” along the southern border. A Trump campaign ad claims that Mr. Biden's immigration policies “increase the possibility of a Hamas attack” in the United States.

It is not yet clear whether Trump's political agenda will derail other opportunities for bipartisan legislation on Capitol Hill this year, whose prospects were already bleak given the election calendar and the dysfunction of the current Congress. Conservatives have already begun to oppose a bipartisan tax bill, the passage of which could be seen as a victory for Mr. Biden as it would expand the child tax credit. Mr Trump has yet to give his opinion.

On Thursday, Republican supporters of the border deal were outraged at the idea that Trump could potentially pull their hard-negotiated deal from the campaign trail.

“I think we need to have people here who support Trump, who have supported President Trump, go to him and tell him what a compelling case this is for someone who will probably be our next president of the United States,” he said. Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina. 'Don't pretend that the policy is not strong. If you want to admit that you're just afraid to tell President Trump the truth, that's fine.”

Mr. Tillis said condemning the Senate proposal as too weak meant “you're either not paying attention or you're not telling the truth.”

Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said Mr. Biden had a clear political problem at the southern border and “the politics would suggest that you let him cook in his own oil on this particular issue.”

He said the Senate still has an obligation to pass legislation to fortify the country's border, even if it would give Mr. Biden a political victory. That doesn't seem to be the position most of his colleagues take.

Senator Christopher S. Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat who has played a leading role in the negotiations, said Trump's opposition to the deal should not be a surprise.

“That's the cold, hard reality of Donald Trump, who sees the border only as a political issue, not a policy problem to be solved,” Murphy said.

Some far-right Republicans in the Senate, who are deeply opposed to the emerging deal, accused Mr. McConnell of trying to blame its demise on Mr. Trump. Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said Mr. McConnell was “trying to shift the blame to President Trump for what I would say are failed negotiations.”

Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, said it was shortsighted to send a “weak sauce” border security bill to the House of Representatives, where Speaker Johnson has suggested it would be dead on arrival. That strategy, Mr. Vance said, “allows the president to blame 'MAGA' Republicans for the failure of a border security package, when in reality the failure was a very weak border security package that actually did nothing.”

Karoun Demirjian And Carl Hulse reporting contributed.