The expected duel is confirmed. Joe Biden and his rival Donald Trump obtained, as of Tuesday March 12, enough delegates to ensure their party’s nomination for the presidential election in November, according to American media estimates, offering themselves for the months to come one of the longest electoral face-offs in American history.
The results of the Democratic and Republican primaries held on Tuesday were practically a foregone conclusion, with Joe Biden and Trump having eliminated the competition. Outgoing President Joe Biden crossed the threshold of 1,968 necessary delegates by winning the Democratic primary in Georgia (south). On the side of Donald Trump, 77, his victory in Washington State (northwest) allowed him to cross the threshold of 1,215 delegates necessary to win the nomination of the Republican Party.
The “Trump threat”
As the two men prepare to repeat the 2020 match, Joe Biden attacked his opponent in a press release. “I am honored that the broad coalition of voters representing the rich diversity of the Democratic Party across the country have placed their faith in me once again to lead the party – and the country – at a time when the threat of Trump is bigger than ever,” the Democrat said.
If the early reinauguration of an outgoing president is the norm, the victory of the former Republican president in almost all Republican primaries to date has allowed him to secure the nomination much earlier than most candidates. opposition during previous campaigns. Joe Biden, 81, has never faced serious opposition and Donald Trump’s last competitor, Nikki Haley, threw in the towel on March 6.
During the almost eight months that separate them from the November 5 election, the two candidates will now be able to devote all their energy to their face-to-face meeting.
The mugshot
Donald Trump is campaigning by directly opposing Joe Biden’s policies on immigration, accusing his successor of having transformed the southern border of the United States into a sieve. But it was also at the request of Donald Trump that an immigration law, negotiated for months by members of both parties, was finally rejected by the Republicans in Congress.
The issue has become particularly sensitive in the state of Georgia, which voted on Tuesday for the primaries, and where the murder of an American student by an illegal Venezuelan was highlighted by the Republican camp. Donald Trump has made it the symbol of Joe Biden’s immigration policy, whom he accuses of being too lax in the face of the numerous arrivals at the border with Mexico.
In 2020, Georgia, a traditionally Republican state, surprisingly voted Democratic, contributing decisively to Joe Biden’s victory. Donald Trump had put pressure on local electoral officials, asking them to “find” the number of votes necessary to make up for his delay.
The former president was indicted in this case and made his mugshot, taken in the capital Atlanta, a campaign article.
See you in November
Georgia risks being decisive again in November, the gap between Donald Trump and Joe Biden being very tight there, according to polls. The two men both campaigned there on Saturday. In the wake of a particularly pugnacious speech to Congress on Thursday, Joe Biden went to Atlanta to try to mobilize the African-American and Hispanic electorate.
Donald Trump, for his part, performed an imitation of a stuttering Joe Biden, a way of mocking, as he regularly does, the mental and physical form which he considers to be failing in his competitor.
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nevada are among the other potentially decisive states in November, what Americans call “swing states”.