The expected duel is now almost official: Joe Biden and Donald Trump saw their respective statuses as Democratic and Republican candidates for the November presidential election cemented after their victory during the various primaries organized on Tuesday March 12.
By declaring him the winner of the state of Georgia, the American media thus affirmed that the current American president, Joe Biden, 81, running for a second term, exceeded the threshold of 1,968 delegates required to ensure of his party’s nomination. This future inauguration is anything but a surprise, Joe Biden having never faced serious opposition.
On the Republican side, the suspense was no greater, with the 77-year-old former president, Donald Trump, being the only candidate still in the running for the presidential election after eliminating the competition – around ten candidates – in recent months. Her last rival Nikki Haley threw in the towel on March 6.
Mr. Trump won Tuesday in Georgia and Mississippi before a success in Washington state allowed him to cross the threshold of 1,215 delegates he needed to claim the Republican nomination, these representatives being supposed to crown him at a convention this summer.
Georgia could still be decisive in November
In Georgia, Donald Trump does not have only good memories. This state in the southeast of the country traditionally leans towards the Republican candidate in the presidential election. Its residents had also chosen it to the detriment of Hillary Clinton in 2016. But in 2020, to everyone’s surprise, the state preferred the Democrat Biden over the tempestuous Republican, candidate for a second term. The gap between the two men was tiny, less than 12,000 votes, and Donald Trump never admitted his defeat.
Instead, the septuagenarian put pressure on election officials in the state, asking them in a now-famous call to “find” the number of votes to close his gap. After this telephone conversation was made public, the former president was indicted by the Georgian authorities. Donald Trump is now facing prison and his mugshot, the famous mugshot taken in the state capital, Atlanta, has gone around the world.
Georgia, so decisive in the 2020 election, risks being just as decisive in November. The announced duel is the same, Donald Trump facing Joe Biden, and the gap is very close, according to the polls.
Immigration at the heart of the campaign
The two men were both campaigning in the state on Saturday, clashing over the issue of the president’s age and immigration – two recurring topics in their battle before the election. Joe Biden, in the momentum of a particularly pugnacious speech to Congress on Thursday, went to Atlanta to mobilize the African-American and Hispanic electorate.
Facing his most loyal lieutenants, Donald Trump has stepped up his virulent attacks against migrants crossing the border with Mexico. The former president also began imitating a stuttering Joe Biden, a way of mocking, as he regularly does, the mental and physical form of his competitor.
Other potentially decisive states in November include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nevada, what Americans call “swing states.”