Donald Trump wins Republican presidential primary in Washington

US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both clinched their parties' nomination on Tuesday, kicking off the first U.S. presidential election rematch in nearly 70 years.

According to Edison Research, Joe Biden passed the necessary 1,968 delegates on Tuesday night as the results of the Georgia primary contest started to come in. Additional results were coming in from Democrats residing overseas, Mississippi, Washington state, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

A few hours later, as four states held elections—including Georgia, the battleground where Trump is charged with a crime for his attempts to void the state's 2020 election results—Trump secured the 1,215 delegates needed to win the Republican presidential nomination. 

On Tuesday, 161 delegates from Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington state were up for grabs.

After securing the Democratic nomination, Biden came under fire for what he described as Trump's "campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America."

"Voters now have a choice to make about the future of this country. Are we going to stand up and defend our democracy or let others tear it down? Will we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms or let extremists take them away?" he said as quoted by Reuters. 

Meanwhile, Biden faced only token opposition in the Democratic primary campaign, though liberal activists frustrated by his support for Israel's war in Gaza have convinced a sizable minority of Democrats to vote "uncommitted" in protest.

The Biden campaign launched a more aggressive phase on Friday, announcing Biden would tour several battleground states amid a $30 million ad buy. The campaign said it raised $10 million in the 24 hours after Biden's State of the Union speech, adding to Democrats' financial edge over Republicans.

The last rematch of presidential contests occurred in 1956, when Republican President Dwight Eisenhower triumphed over Democratic former governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson twice.

(With Reuters inputs)