WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden clinched the Democratic presidential nomination with decisive victories in Georgia and Mississippi on Tuesday, overcoming concerns about his leadership from within his own party as the 2024 presidential contest shifts to a general election rematch that many voters do not want.
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Donald Trump, too, was on pace to secure his party’s nomination despite serious political and practical liabilities of his own. The Republican former president, a defendant in four felony cases, also won Georgia and Mississippi but was just shy of the threshold needed to clinch the GOP nomination with votes still being collected across Washington state and Hawaii.
Overall, Tuesday marked a crystalizing moment for a nation uneasy with its choices in 2024.
There is no longer any doubt that the fall general election will feature a rematch between two flawed and unpopular presidents. And that 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.”
On the eve of Tuesday’s primaries, Trump acknowledged that Biden would be the Democratic nominee, even as he unleashed a new attack on the president’s age.
“I assume he’s going to be the candidate,” Trump said of Biden on CNBC. “I’m his only opponent other than life, life itself.”
Despite their tough talk, both Biden and Trump are grappling with…
