Discord among delegates was on display Monday as aggrieved anti-Trump Republicans protested the adoption of rules aimed at quashing an unlikely effort to block the nomination.
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CLEVELAND-House Speaker Paul Ryan has formally declared Donald Trump the victor of the Republican presidential nomination.
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions put Trump’s name up for the nomination shortly before 6 p.m. ET.
Because of the states he’d won in the primaries and caucuses, Trump already had many more than 1,237 delegates pledged to him going into the convention. NY put him over the top in the delegate count. Trump’s rise appeared partly fueled by a decline in the number of voters who remained on the sidelines. Clinton is due to be officially nominated at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia next week.
He is set to formally accept the nomination during a Thursday night speech at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. Two passages from Mrs. Trump’s address – each 30 words or longer – matched a 2008 Democratic convention address by Michelle Obama almost word-for-word.
Mr Trump’s campaign managed only to keep the controversy alive on Day 2 of the convention by insisting there was no evidence of plagiarism, while offering no explanation for how the strikingly similar passages wound up in Mrs Trump’s address.
Clinton pounced on the tumult, saying the Republican gathering had so far been “surreal”, comparing it to the classic fantasy film “Wizard of Oz”. This year, however, Republican leaders have struggled to give a full-throated endorsement of Trump’s “America First” campaign over his hard line on immigration and trade, and his fiery rhetoric that some have called bigoted. However, the appeal was unsuccessful because, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus said, all the votes went to Trump because Rubio and Cruz suspended their campaigns.
Story compiled with sources from The Associated Press and Twitter. “They’re literally phrases. I was impressed somebody did their homework to think that that could be possibly done”. Ted Cruz and six for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
In alphabetical order, states and territories and the District of Columbia all officially cast their delegate votes for the presidential nomination. The last time that Trump matched Clinton’s level of support was in mid-May, after his remaining rivals for the Republican nomination dropped out and many Republican leaders started to openly support his bid for the White House.
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Mrs. Trump was widely praised for her success in doing just that, despite the plagiarism charges.
