Donald Trump Clinches Republican Nomination During RNC Roll Call
CLEVELAND, Ohio— -- Donald Trump officially clinched the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday evening after securing enough delegates during the roll call vote on the floor of the convention.
A rules change allowed New York to announce its vote out of alphabetical order so that it could be the one to put him over the edge the threshold of 1,237.
Trump's son, Donald Jr., who is a Republican delegate, was the one to announce the vote with his sisters Ivanka and Tiffany and brother Eric by his side.
"Congratulations Dad, we love you!" Donald Jr. screamed.
Don Jr. told ABC afterwards that "other than the birth of my children, it's the coolest thing I've ever done. Totally surreal. Totally intense."
The convention secretary went through one-by-one through the list of states alphabetically as the chairs of each delegation will briefly tout their state before announcing their state's vote total.
House Speaker Paul Ryan confirmed the tally after all of the states had been heard, and after Alaska raised some questions about the way that their state's rules had changed.
One of the earliest signs of the party falling in line behind their candidate came with Colorado's vote. Many of the state's delegates walked out of the Quicken Loans Arena during the vote on the rules on Monday afternoon, but this evening they gave their brief speech without incident.
The praised their state as being "God's most beautiful piece of real estate" before mater-of-factly awarding Sen. Ted Cruz the vast majority of their votes and only two for "the next president of the United States, Donald J. Trump."
The first delegate clash happened on the floor when the District of Columbia's delegates said they voted for 10 for Sen. Marco Rubio and 9 for Gov. John Kasich, but the convention's secretary recorded all 19 for Trump. This won't affect the final outcome, however.
The New Hampshire delegation had a well-known native, Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, announce the state's vote allotment, and New Jersey followed by having Gov. Chris Christie's son, Andrew Christie, award its votes.
