Hillary Clinton secured Democratic
Party’s U.S. presidential nomination on Tuesday to become the first
woman to head the ticket of a major party in U.S. history.
In a symbolic show of party unity,
Clinton’s former rival, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, told the
chairwoman from the convention floor that Clinton, 68, should be
selected as the party’s nominee at the dramatic climax of a
state-by-state roll call at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
Capping nearly a quarter century in
public life, Clinton will become the party’s standard-bearer against
Republican nominee Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 election when she accepts
the nomination on Thursday.
“If there are any little girls out there
who stayed up late to watch, let me just say: I may become the first
woman president, but one of you is next,” Clinton told the convention
via a video satellite link.
In nominating Clinton, delegate after
delegate made the point that the selection of a woman was a milestone in
America’s 240-year-old history.
U.S. women got the right to vote in 1920 after ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
Clinton’s husband, former President Bill
Clinton, portrayed her in a speech to the convention as a dynamic force
for change as he made a case for her White House bid.
“Hillary is uniquely qualified to seize
the opportunities and reduce the risks we face, and she is still the
best darn change-maker I have ever known,” he said, hitting back at
Republican arguments she is a Washington insider tied to the status quo.
The Democratic nominee, who promises to
tackle income inequality, tighten gun control and rein in Wall Street if
she becomes president, is eager to portray Trump, a businessman and
former reality TV show host, as too unstable to sit in the Oval Office.
Trump, 70, who has never held elective
office, got a boost in opinion polls from his nomination at the
Republican convention last week.
He had a two-point lead over Clinton in a
Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday, the first time he has
been ahead since early May.
Sanders has endorsed Clinton, but some
of his supporters protested in Philadelphia against the party
leadership’s apparent backing of her during the Democratic primary
fight.
Sections of the convention hall were
left conspicuously unpopulated as delegates from strongly pro-Sanders
delegations, including California, walked out after Sanders moved that
Clinton be named the nominee.
Earlier on Tuesday, delegates from South
Dakota had given Clinton 15 votes, formally ensuring that she had more
than the 2,383 votes needed to win the nomination. She emerged with a
total of 2,842 votes to Sanders’ 1,865.
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