US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
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Donald Trump on Thursday secured the support of enough delegates to clinch the Republican presidential nomination, after unbound delegates pledged to back the billionaire, according to the Associated Press count.
“The folks behind me got us right over the top from North Dakota”, Trump said at a press conference in Bismarck, standing onstage with some 15 unbound delegates from the midwestern state who committed their support to the real estate tycoon.
Trump’s likely Democratic rival in the general election, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, is set meanwhile to lock in the nomination following the Jun 7 primaries.
Most Republican delegates are bound by the results of their states’ presidential primary elections but as many as 200 are not bound by those rules.
He will continue to add to his total with delegates from the upcoming primaries and any additional support from unbound delegates. But if his campaign was initially underestimated by the party and political media, it soon became clear that Trump’s anti-establishment, populist rhetoric had struck a nerve across the country.
The world leaders “are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements but they’re rattled by him – and for good reason, because a lot of the proposals that he’s made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude”, Obama said.
Hours before clinching the nomination, he announced the abrupt departure of political director Rick Wiley, who was in the midst of leading the campaign’s push to hire staff in key battleground states. “Little Marco” Rubio, “Weak” Jeb Bush and “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz, among others, all were forced into reacting to Trump.
He said, “The choice in November is a choice between a Clinton agenda that puts donors first or an agenda that puts America first: my agenda”.
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Trump also entered a new phase on the fundraising front. Having bashed donors for much of the past year, he hosted his first major campaign fundraiser the night before: a $25,000-per-ticket dinner in Los Angeles.
