(CN) — President Joe Biden secured enough delegates to become the Democratic Party's official 2024 presidential nominee Tuesday evening, with former President Donald Trump close to scoring the necessary Republican delegates as well.
As of Tuesday night, Biden had 2,107 delegates and as votes poured in from Georgia's primary election shortly after 7 p.m., he had secured more than the 1,968 needed to win. Georgia had 108 Democratic delegates up for grabs, along with 35 in Mississippi, six in the Northern Mariana Islands and 92 in Washington state.
Biden received 95.2% of the Democratic vote in Georgia. The Associated Press reported the president nabbed 100 delegates in Georgia, 35 in Mississippi, six from the Northern Mariana Islands.
Neither of Biden’s main challengers, Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips and bestselling self-help author and perennial Democratic candidate Marianne Williamson, have secured any delegates so far. Phillips, who suspended his campaign after Super Tuesday, received 5,256 votes in Georgia so far, while Williamson, who remains in the race, has 8,644.
Trump also officially secured his spot as the Republican nominee Tuesday night, as the AP called Washington state's 43 Republican delegates for the former president with 74.2% of the GOP vote by 9 p.m., pushing him just over the 1,215 delegates needed. Biden also gained the state's 92 Democratic delegates, with 86.7% with 79% of the votes counted Tuesday night.
Trump received 84.5% of the Republican votes in Georgia, The Associated Press reported. He grabbed the 56 delegates available in Georgia and 40 in Mississippi.
Hawaii Republicans held their caucus Tuesday as well, which earned Trump 19 delegates, with 97% of the votes. Trump ended the night with total of 1,241 delegates. Democrats in Hawaii previously gave Biden 15 delegates during their March 6 caucus.
In Super Tuesday elections on March 5 — where the largest number of delegates were up for grabs on a single day in the 2024 Republican presidential primary — Trump walked away with most of them after voting ended in the 15 states holding GOP contests.
Following Trump’s sweeping lead as the GOP front-runner, his last remaining rival in the Republican race, Nikki Haley, dropped out on March 6. The former South Carolina governor lost every primary except for those in Vermont and the District of Columbia, ultimately ceding the Republican nomination to Trump. Nonetheless, Haley was still able to secure 60,067 votes in Georgia and 94 delegates — more than any other Trump challengers on the Republican side.
Biden and Trump gave a preview of their November rematch over the weekend as they traded barbs during simultaneous events in Atlanta and Rome, Georgia. The state has become a political battleground after Trump's 2020 election defeat to Biden marked the first time a Republican presidential nominee has lost in Georgia since 1992.
Trump’s primary victory in Georgia comes as he faces multiple criminal charges in the state for attempting to overturn his loss following the 2020 election. But many voters appear unfazed by Trump's current legal woes and came out Tuesday to show him their support.
"Trump is who I voted for," said Mary, a voter from Canton, Georgia. "I like his policies and I think we need a change."
Another voter from Cherokee County — a mostly Republican area — said she voted to show her support for the conservatives and Republicans.
"Even though the race is pretty much done, I don't want [Georgia] to be a purple state or a blue state," that voter, Candie Hauptmann, said.
Trump has repeatedly and publicly attacked Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp for not helping to push the former president's false fraud claims about the 2020 elections.
Despite this contentious history, Kemp said on Tuesday that he would support Trump as the party nominee.
“I think he’d be better than Joe Biden," Kemp said. "It’s as simple as that."
Still, the governor declined to say whether he’d campaign with Trump or take other action to proactively support the former president. Instead, he said he wanted to focus on helping Republicans keep their solid majorities in the Georgia General Assembly.
State prosecutors are pushing for an election interference trial against Trump and several of his allies to begin in August, before the election.
On March 25, Trump is also scheduled to go on trial in New York on charges of making hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The Supreme Court is set to hear Trump's presidential immunity claims on April 22, which relates to federal election interference charges he faces in Washington D.C. That could affect his case in Georgia as well.
Other voters in Cobb County expressed concerns over Trump's court troubles and support for Biden. The county is the third-largest county in Georgia that has been trending blue since 2016, in part because of growing diversity as Black and Hispanic residents move to Atlanta’s northwestern suburbs.
"I'm a long-time Democrat. I like Biden's policies on the environment and I like that the economy is doing a lot better now," said Catherine Smith, a voter in Marietta. She added that Trump seems like a "bully."
"The leader of the country should be an example for how Americans should treat each other," Smith said. "Donald Trump just seems mean and vindictive and insincere about a lot of things."
Biden and his allies have spent tens of millions of dollars on airtime in Georgia and a few other highly competitive states. A pro-Trump super PAC fired back with a new TV ad that aired the day before the president's State of the Union Address on Friday.
If “Biden wins, can he even survive till 2029?" that ad asked.
Facing a less competitive process for the Democratic Party's nomination, Biden was able to end January with about $56 million in his campaign, up from $46 million in December, according to a disclosure to the Federal Election Commission.
Meanwhile, the fundraising disadvantage for Trump has been magnified by a significant drain that legal expenses for his multiple civil and criminal trials have put on his campaign and PAC funds. Those legal costs are expected to further climb throughout the year.
Two political action committees — the Save America leadership PAC and the Make America Great Again PAC — have dedicated large sums to paying Trump’s legal bills. Together, they spent more than $55 million on legal bills in 2023. Save America spent about $3 million on legal bills just in the first month of 2024.
Still, the first president to face criminal charges has also been able to profit from his high-profile surrender at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta on Aug. 24, 2023. The following day, Trump raised $4.18 million — the single highest-earning 24-hour period of his campaign to date. Much of that funding was powered by merchandise sold on his campaign's online store, which featured his scowling mugshot.
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