US elections 2024: Trump wins GOP nomination, setting up rematch with Biden

By Stephanie Lai and Hadriana Lowenkron
 

Donald Trump has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, capping off a stunning political comeback fueled by grievance and vengeance and formally entering what’s poised to be the longest and costliest general election in recent memory.  
 

The former president on Tuesday night crossed the threshold for the number of delegates needed to become the GOP nominee, the Associated Press reported. That allows Trump free rein to consolidate the Republican Party’s political operation and fully turn his attention toward a rematch with President Joe Biden.

If elected, Trump has vowed to root out the so-called “deep state” of civil servants, crack down on illegal immigration, enact protectionist trade policies and curtail the US’s role in the world. 

He refrained from his usual post-primary victory party in favor of a low-key video statement on social media. “So we’re not going to take time to celebrate,” he said. “We’ll celebrate in eight months when the election is over.”

Trump left the presidency as a national pariah after his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. He was the first American president to be impeached twice. Since leaving office, he’s been charged in four criminal cases, battling 91 felony counts over allegations regarding his attempt to reverse his loss to Biden, his handling of classified documents and payments to an adult film star. 

Trump announced his third presidential run in November 2022 following Republicans’ underwhelming performance in the midterm elections, an outcome some members of his party laid at his feet. 

More than a dozen GOP hopefuls ran against Trump, including several onetime allies, including former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his own vice president, Mike Pence. 

Yet the criminal charges galvanized Republican voters around the former president, while his competitors ran flawed campaigns and flamed out. Trump’s last remaining GOP rival, Haley, ended her campaign after last week’s Super Tuesday contests. Trump’s dominance in the 2024 primaries, in which he won all but two races, signals the GOP still belongs to Trump.

With a victory in the Georgia Democratic primary on Tuesday, Biden won enough delegates to secure his party’s nomination. He had already driven his chief Democratic competitor, Dean Phillips, out of the race with a string of Super Tuesday wins. Then last Thursday, the president delivered a fiery State of the Union address last Thursday intended to quell voter concerns about his age and laying out the stakes for his second race against Trump. 

Trump’s triumph, which his campaign intended to secure by mid-March, highlights his team’s ability to turn legal woes that would have ended any other politician’s career into his battle cry, energizing supporters who have bought into his unfounded claims of political persecution. 

He’ll have to harness that energy to refill campaign coffers that are dwarfed by Biden’s. Trump’s campaign now has met the criteria set forth by the Republican National Committee to merge its efforts with the national party.

That allows Trump to raise higher dollar amounts through joint fundraising agreements with the RNC. Trump on Friday moved to seize control of the party operation, installing three allies, including his daughter-in-law, to leadership roles after pressuring former chair Ronna McDaniel to resign.

The 2024 election is expected to be one of the most expensive on record. In recent American history, there has not been a campaign with candidates who have been in the public eye for so long, and with such low approval ratings. That will require them to spend billions of dollars to persuade voters to cast ballots for them.

Trump leads Biden in head-to-head matchups across seven swing states, according to a Bloomberg News / Morning Consult poll taken last month. 

The former president has assailed Biden’s immigration policies and repeatedly belittled him over his age and memory, even as he faces questions about his own mental acuity. Despite skipping five debates against his Republican primary challengers, Trump has been urging Biden to agree to debate. 

Even though he leads in the polls, Trump faces significant obstacles to returning to the White House. Six in 10 swing-state voters say he is too dangerous, according to the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll taken last month, and a previous survey showed a majority would not vote for him if he is convicted of a crime. 

Leaders on Wall Street and in foreign capitals have been put off by the former president’s inflammatory rhetoric. 

Trump has said his criminal indictments increased had his appeal to Black people. He said he would let Russia do “whatever they hell they want” to NATO member states that do not meet the alliance’s defense-spending targets. He has also rooted for for a stock market crash during Biden’s presidency. 

The former president must also attract more suburban and female voters, a tall task in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned nationwide abortion rights after Trump appointed three conservative justices to the bench.