Trump clinches GOP nomination with Tuesday primary wins

President Donald Trump has clinched Republican Party mination, surpassing necessary delegate threshold.

Trump, who h only token opposition, w has more than 1,276 delegates needed after winning Tuesday’s Florida and Illiis primaries, according to Associated Press’ delegate count.

That makes Trump undisputed Republican minee as Democrats continue to w a contested primary contest between former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

This is earliest delegate calendar permits a Republican to clinch mination.

“It shows enthusiasm behind President Trump, it shows how unified Republicans are behind President Trump and how intense ir support for him is,” said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh, who ted Trump has set record vote tallies, even in largely uncontested contests.

“Republicans and President Trump’s supporters have been just itching to get involved in process that will end with his reelection in vember,” Murtaugh said.

Trump h 1,141 delegates going into Tuesday’s Florida and Illiis primaries (Arizona was t holding a Republican primary) and he needed 135 more to win. wins in Florida and Illiis were big because ir primaries awarded all delegates to winner.

Regardless of order of race calls, Trump’s campaign intended to credit Florida for putting him over top as it tries to highlight a state that was crucial to Trump’s 2016 victory and will likely be required for him to win again in 2020.

president h accumulated all but one of available delegates this primary season, with former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld winning a single delegate in Iowa caucuses.

That lone Weld delegate can w vote for Trump if he is only candidate minated, according to GOP rules.

Trump’s re-mination came much faster than in 2016, when he passed magic number in late May in rth Dakota. Trump marked occasion with a news conference in Bismarck, during which he shook hands with two delegates who h carried him over threshold.

Besides lack of big-name opponents, Trump was bolstered by rules changes in Republican minating process that White House h aggressively pushed, including canceled primaries and caucuses long before coronavirus pandemic, higher thresholds to get delegates and more winner-take-all contests.

“ rules were tweaked in a big number of states to make it much harder for also-rans for mination to compete in any meaningful way,” said delegate expert and political scientist Josh Putnam of Frontloing HQ.

But it also “speaks to something we kind of knew going into this,” Putnam said. “ party, at least folks opting to turn out to vote, were unifying behind ir president.”

Trump is deeply popular within Republican Party despite his overall low job approval numbers, and his campaign has been in general election mode since Trump filed for reelection back in January 2017.

results come as Biden and Sanders continue ir fight for Democratic mination, despite Biden’s commanding le.

While securing mination before his eventual Democratic rival “in regular times would be a decent vant” for Trump, vel coronavirus pandemic that has upended American life could change that, Putnam said.

Trump can longer hold signature mass rallies that have fueled his campaign and ecomy is w in free fall. But Murtaugh argued his team is better equipped than Democrats’ for a virtual campaign thanks to a data vant fueled, in part, but years worth of rallies that serve as voter information collection powerhouses.

“ amount of work that we can do digitally and virtually can’t be matched by or side,” Murtaugh said.