Trump secures enough delegates to clinch Republican nomination
Donald Trump has crossed the magic number of 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination for Republican presidential race, shutting the door to wild-card challengers considering a run.
Donald Trump has crossed the magic number of 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination for Republican presidential race, shutting the door to wild-card challengers considering a run.
Trump’s delegate count reached 1,238 on Tuesday, with Associated Press news agency reporting new pledges of support from unbound Republican delegates, taking him across the threshold.
The Democratic race, on the other hand, remains open, though the front-runner Hillary Clinton has posted an insurmountable lead over Bernie Sanders in the count of delegates.
Trump’s new milestone came with the help of unbound delegates, as opposed to the majority of delegates who are bound to candidates that won their respective states.
With no rivals left in the fray, Trump has been the presumptive Republican nominee, even though he was short of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
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Now, he has checked that box too, which eliminates the possibility of the tycoon facing a challenger in a contested party convention, which the “Never Trump” faction had planned.
There was no reaction to the development from the real estate mogul till the writing of this report, but he will feel reassured and encouraged to demand the party to rally around him now.
Many party leaders such as the House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan, the senior most elected Republican in the country, remain wary of him and have not endorsed him.
Some, such as former presidents George H W Bush and George W Bush and the 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, have announced they will not support him or vote for him.
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Trump does not worry about them much, not publicly at least, as he dissed them once again at an election rally on Wednesday, but he does want Ryan’s support and has canvassed for it.
The billionaire, whose unexpected rise to the top for the Republican party race is being watched closely around the world, was not exactly waiting for this new milestone.
He is already embroiled in a heated exchange of words, insinuations, allegations — and insults from him — with Clinton, who is widely expected to win the Democratic race.
A Trump advertisement released this week attacked Hillary for her husband Bill Clinton’s infidelities, and a Clinton commercial accused the real estate magnate of having cheered on the 2008 housing collapse.
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