Donald Trump, the former star of The Apprentice, became the official Republican presidential candidate on Tuesday evening after winning a majority of the votes from delegates at the party’s convention in Cleveland.
Mr Trump secured the 1,237 votes he needed when his son, Donald Jr, announced the support of his home state of New York, “Congratulations Dad, we love you.” The final tally was 1,725 votes.
Mr Trump will not formally accept the nomination until his primetime speech on Thursday, but the result marks the official end of the Republican primary, one of the most acrimonious in recent history. Mr Trump ousted 16 rivals as his populist campaign caught fire among the Republican base, and managed to avoid a contested convention after hammering his final rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, in the last of the primary races.