After two month of primaries and caucuses, Biden, Trump clinch their nominations

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump clinched their parties’ nominations for president by winning state primaries Tuesday, setting up the same choice voters saw in the 2020 election.

Both candidates are unpopular with the general electorate, but neither faced serious hurdles to their nominations in the states that have held presidential nominating contests.

Early polls of the November election show Trump with a slim lead at the national level and in key swing states.

Biden, who defeated Trump’s reelection attempt in 2020, won Democratic primaries in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state on Tuesday, giving him 2,107 delegates. The Democratic National Committee rules required a candidate to secure 1,968 delegates to clinch the nomination.

Democrats will officially nominate Biden at their national convention in Chicago from Aug. 19 to 22.

Trump swept Republican primaries and caucuses in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington on Tuesday, giving him 1,241 delegates so far. He needed 1,215 to clinch the nomination.

Republicans will make him their presidential nominee for the third straight cycle at their convention in Milwaukee July 15-18.

The candidates clinched nominations after only about half of states held nominating contests. The process, which Republicans kicked off Jan. 15 with the Iowa caucuses and the Democrats started with their first official primary in South Carolina primary in February, is designed to take months, as only a few states generally hold contests in any given week.

To win in November, the candidates already are focused on a handful of swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – that will award 93 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.