CLEVELAND — Indiana Gov. Mike Pence accepted the nomination to serve as vice president to Republican Donald Trump on Wednesday night.
But underscoring the deep divisions that remain within the Republican Party, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas finished his speech to loud boos on Wednesday night after failing to endorse Trump.
Anti-Trump Republican delegate Ken Cuccinelli told Reuters he escorted Cruz’s wife, Heidi, off the convention floor of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland out of concern for her safety.
Cruz, who came in a distant second behind Trump in the race for the nomination, stopped short of endorsing Trump after a bitter and personal campaign and mentioned him only once, drawing boos and repeated chants of “We want Trump.”
“I want to congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination last night,” Cruz began.
Later in his speech, he urged: “Please, don’t stay home in November. Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”
Trump made his entrance to the convention hall near the end of the speech, applauding Cruz’s remarks but distracting the crowd from his former rival.
During the campaign for the party’s nomination, Trump insulted Cruz’s wife’s looks and suggested the Texan’s father was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin just before the president was shot in Dallas in 1963.
During the primary campaign, Cruz called the New York real estate developer a “serial philanderer” and a “narcissist.”
Another Trump rival vanquished in the race for the party nomination, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, spoke by video and praised Trump for his commitments to safeguarding national security, lowering taxes and appointing conservative Supreme Court justices.
“The time for fighting each other is over. It’s time to fight for a new direction for America. It’s time to win in November,” Rubio said.
After a couple of awkward joint appearances, Trump and his running mate wanted to make a show of their solidarity at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday despite a string of policy differences.
Pence, the keynote speaker on the third day of the convention in Cleveland, has been well received by people in the party’s social conservative wing who are skeptical of Trump’s commitment to opposing abortion and same-sex marriage but who trust his running mate.
Trump, 70, and Pence, 57, shared the stage only briefly on Saturday when Pence publicly agreed to be Trump’s vice presidential candidate. Their first televised interview together, on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” was not smooth.
Asked then about Pence’s support for the Iraq war while he was a U.S. lawmaker, Trump responded: “I don’t care,” saying Pence was allowed to make occasional mistakes. When the interviewer asked if Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton should get the same wiggle room on her own vote for the war when she was a U.S. senator, Trump said: “No.”
Trump, a New York businessman who has never held public office, is expected to face off in the Nov. 8 presidential election against Clinton, 68, a former secretary of state who is expected to secure the Democratic nomination at a party convention next week in Philadelphia.
For a third consecutive night, speaker after speaker drew cheers with their withering criticism of Clinton, hoping to become the first woman elected U.S. president.
“We need a president who is not afraid to say ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ And we need a president who will wipe ISIS off the face of the Earth,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott said, referring to Islamic State. He also called for tough U.S. border controls.
“On every one of these measures, Hillary Clinton fails. She fails, she fails, she fails,” Scott said as the Quicken Loans basketball arena filled with cheers of “Lock her up,” a favorite chant of the convention.
Trump made an arrival in Cleveland on Wednesday befitting his larger-than-life personality, landing in a helicopter emblazoned with his last name on the tail. Playing over the loudspeakers was the soaring tune of the movie “Air Force One.”
Stepping off the aircraft, he greeted Pence and was handed a microphone. He told a crowd that Pence was “going to make an unbelievable vice president of the United States.”
“We’re excited to hear you address the nation tomorrow night,” Pence said. “I’m confident that what begins in Cleveland will end in the White House.”
Trump, who trails Clinton in opinion polls, was formally anointed on Tuesday evening as the White House nominee. The convention concludes on Thursday night when Trump accepts the nomination.
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort said Trump and Pence had begun to mesh. “They may have different personalities but they have similar visions,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “I’m comfortable that it’s a less awkward situation than I’ve seen in many marriages.”
In an echo of Trump’s unorthodox journey from businessman and reality TV star to party standard-bearer, the choreography of the convention has been uneven, contrasting with what is generally a smoothly coordinated display of support for a party presidential candidate.
Cleveland police arrested 17 protesters on Wednesday during scuffles with demonstrators who tried to set an American flag on fire near the crowded entrance to the arena, the city’s police chief said. The arrests over three days total 22 people.
Largely overshadowing the convention has been a controversy over a speech Trump’s wife, Melania, gave on Monday night that drew accusations of plagiarism. On Wednesday, a staff writer for the Trump Organization took responsibility for the “chaos” caused by the speech.
Eminent Republicans such as the party’s previous two presidential nominees, Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain, and members of the Bush family that gave the party its last two presidents have stayed away from Cleveland in a show of displeasure at Trump and his rhetoric against illegal immigration and free trade.
Opponents brand Trump a bigot with his calls to temporarily ban the entry of Muslims and to build a border wall with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants.
Underscoring the problems Trump has faced with U.S. allies abroad, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Reuters on Wednesday that Trump threatened U.S. and world security with his “politics of fear and isolation.”
Several convention delegates called Trump’s choice of running mate a step toward uniting a bitterly divided Republican Party and working to build bridges with the party’s establishment.
Pence’s performance on Wednesday, and his public rapport with Trump, could help to sell hesitant Republicans on the duo.