Joe Biden and Donald Trump are now their parties' presumptive nominees

COLUMBIA: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have officially secured the requisite numbers of delegates to be considered their parties' presumptive nominees. It was a foreseeable outcome. Biden faced token opposition in the Democratic primary. Several high-profile Republicans ran against Trump but didn't come close to knocking him off course in his third Republican bid. Here is a look at what that means, what's changed, and what still needs to happen before Biden and Trump can drop "presumptive" and just be their parties' official standard-bearers:

'Presumptive nominee': What does it mean?
The Associated Press only uses the "presumptive nominee" designation once a candidate has captured the number of delegates needed to win a majority vote at the national party convention this summer. For Republicans, that number this year is 1.215. On the Democratic side of things, it's 1,968.


The marker essentially ends the presidential primary season, though both Biden and Trump have been focusing their energies on each other for months.

When do nominees become official?
A presidential candidate doesn't officially become the Republican or Democratic nominee until winning the vote on the floor of the nominating convention, which takes place this summer. Delegates' casting of votes is mostly a ceremonial procedure.