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. (Reuters/NAN)