Donald Trump was Monday formally named as the Republican presidential nominee – days after he survived an assassination attempt.
At the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, the ex-president was confirmed as the party’s formal candidate ahead of the 5 November election.
The 78-year-old also named Ohio senator JD Vance as his election running mate on his social media platform Truth Social.
It comes after Trump survived an assassination attempt on Saturday when a gunman, named by authorities as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, shot at him during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
He was struck on the ear, but still attended the RNC – a four-day event which started on Monday.
Trump has been the presumptive nominee for months, having easily clinched a majority of convention delegates earlier in the year – brushing aside rivals such as South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
However, he didn’t officially become the party’s standard-bearer until Monday’s roll call, where delegates voted for him.
The leader of each state announced their result, putting Trump back in to battle the Democrat candidate – likely to be incumbent Joe Biden – for control of the White House later this year.
The vast majority of the delegates were already bound to support Trump, with at least 2,268 of them known to be supporting him before the RNC even began.
While at least 150 delegates, including the entire delegations from Montana, New Mexico, and South Dakota, were technically “unbound” many had already confirmed they planned to vote for Trump prior to the convention.
President Joe Biden is still expected to receive the Democrats’ presidential nominee despite coming under increased pressure and scrutiny over questions of his mental fitness and ability to carry out the job.
Despite calls for him to step aside, the 81-year-old is expected to run against Trump once more and Biden has insisted he’s going nowhere.
He will be nominated ahead of the Democratic National Convention on 19 August, due to an Ohio law that could have kept Mr Biden off the ballots in the state if he wasn’t nominated by 7 August.
By Agencies
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