Biden-Trump rematch: The first featuring two U.S. presidents since 1912!

President Biden and former President Donald Trump won enough delegates to become the presumptive nominees of their parties in the latest round of primary voting Tuesday, more definitively starting the clock on a bitter and costly eight-month general election campaign.

They each won several states in primary elections on Tuesday to propel them over the finish line.

The two 2020 contenders will provide the US with its first rematch in a presidential election for 70 years.

Polling suggests it will be a tight race that will come down to narrow margins in a few key states.

The nominations will be made official at party conventions this summer.

The 81-year-old president said evening that he was "honoured" voters had backed his re-election bid "in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever".

Citing positive economic trends, he asserted the US was "in the middle of a comeback", but faced challenges to its future as a democracy, as well as from those seeking to pass abortion restrictions and cut social programmes.

Incumbency gave Mr Biden a natural advantage and he faced no serious challengers for the Democratic nomination.

Despite persistent concerns from voters that his age limits his ability to perform the duties of the presidency, the party apparatus rallied around him.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump, 77, remains very popular with the Republican voter base, which has propelled him to victory in primary after primary over well-funded rivals. His campaign for a second term in the White House has zeroed in on stricter immigration laws, including a pledge to "seal the border" and implement "record-setting" deportations, notes ‘The Washington Times’.

Mr Trump has also vowed to fight crime, boost domestic energy production, tax foreign imports, end the war in Ukraine and resume an "America first" approach to global affairs.

Both their re-nominations seemed all but predetermined, despite polling that indicates Americans are dissatisfied with the prospect of another showdown between Mr Biden and Mr Trump in November.

There is no longer any doubt that the fall election will feature a rematch between two flawed and unpopular presidents. At 81, Biden is already the oldest president in U.S. history, while the 77-year-old Trump is facing decades in prison as a defendant in four criminal cases. Their 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.

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