Trump and Biden add to delegate totals, despite already securing party nominations

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have both added to their respective delegate totals, following four more state primary elections which took place on Tuesday night.

The numbers are now somewhat inconsequential, as both men have already secured the requisite numbers of delegates needed to win their parties’ nominations at the conventions this summer.

Primary elections took place on Tuesday in the states of Wisconsin, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island. Multiple names remained on the presidential ballots in the four states, though neither Mr Trump nor Mr Biden faced any major challenger.

The races in Connecticut and Rhode Island were called for both Mr Trump and Mr Biden by the Associated Press at around 8pm eastern time. Both men were announced as the winners in New York around an hour later at 9pm.

The results in Wisconsin, also called in favour of Mr Biden and Mr Trump were announced shortly after that, at 8.15pm local (central) time.

Following the results Mr Biden had 3,017 delegates, having needed 1,968 to secure the Democratic nomination, according to the AP delegate tracker.

Mr Trump had 1,855 delegates, having needed 1,215 to secure the Republican nomination, AP reported.

Delaware was also scheduled to hold a Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, but the contest was canceled on 19 March after former candidate Nikki Haley had her name removed from the ballot, leaving Trump the only remaining candidate.

A Democratic primary there would also have been held Tuesday, but Mr Biden was the only candidate to file for the ballot, so the event was never scheduled.

In both cases, the parties awarded all the state’s delegates to Biden and Trump, as they were the only candidates remaining in their contests.

With both parties having concluded the “competitive” portions of the primary season, attention has shifted to down-ballot races and a growing protest vote movement centred around progressive resistance to the president’s handling of the war in Gaza.

The vote total in Wisconsin gained new importance in the past 48 hours following the deaths of seven aid workers with celebrity chef Jose Andres’s World Central Kitchen humanitarian group in Gaza.

Supporters of calls for a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip are urging Democratic voters to turn out and vote “uninstructed” in their party’s primary.

Pressure has been growing on Mr Biden especially, to push harder for a ceasefire in the Middle East, with some states, including Michigan, fostering similar campaigns for residents to submit “uncommitted votes” for the president.