Donald Trump and Joe Biden win their party nominations

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.