Former President Bill Clinton struts on stage at the Democratic National Convention. Miguel Martinez/MundoHispanico
PHILADELPHIA — Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential nominee for a major political party Tuesday, a historic moment for Democrats as the internal dissent that rocked the party gave way to a hard-fought sense of unity.
The tone was set by Georgia U.S. Rep. John Lewis, once at the center of one of the party’s biggest feuds when he spurned Clinton in 2008 for Barack Obama. Declaring that Clinton was “about to shatter the glass ceiling again,” his prime-time burying of the hatchet could have been a symbol for supporters of Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders still simmering over his defeat.
Clinton formally became the party’s pick after a roll-call vote Tuesday that culminated when Sanders rose to request that the former secretary of state become the party’s nominee as the convention hall erupted in applause. It was an emotional gesture from a runner-up trying to bridge the party’s troubled divide.
“We just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet,” Clinton said.
Read more about her historic night here.
Here’s the rest of the live blog:
Update 11:17 p.m.: Hillary Clinton, the newly minted Democratic nominee for president, closed out the second day of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday with a brief video message to delegates, thanking them for their historic vote.
Clinton, who was at home in New York, will officially accept the nomination on Thursday to close the convention.
She appeared on screen as sound effect of glass breaking filled the arena.
“What an incredible honor you’ve given me,” she said. “And I can’t believe we just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet. This is really your victory. This is really your night. And 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.”
Update 10:49 p.m.: Bill Clinton began to really hit his stride when he turned to politics for the first time tonight.
After running through her accomplishments as a senator and secretary of State, Clinton asked, “How does this square with the things that you heard at the Republican convention? How do you square it? You can’t. One is real, the other is made up. You just have to decide which is which my fellow American.”
It’s easy, he said.
“The real one had done more real positive change-making before she was 30 than public officials do in a life time,” he said. “The real one calls you when you’re sick, when your kid is in trouble or when there’s a death in the family. The real one is who drew praise from prominent republicans when she was a senator and secretary of State.”
The only option to fight someone like Hillary Clinton, he said, “is to create a cartoon. A cartoon alternative. A cartoon is two dimensional. They are easy to absorb. The life in the real world is complicated and real change is hard and a lot of people even think it’s boring.”
Throughout the 45 minute address Clinton never uttered the words “Donald Trump.”
Update 10:36 p.m. The former president is into the late 1980s and 90s now. He explained how Hillary Clinton led an Arkansas school reform effort.
“She’s insatiably curious, she’s a good organizer and she is the best darn change maker I ever met in my entire life,” he said.
Now, he’s remembering moving daughter Chelsea into Stanford University in 1997.
“Chelsea took charge and told us ever so gently that it was time for us to go,” he said. “So we closed a big chapter in the most important work of our lives.”
Update 10:27 p.m.: Bill Clinton has gotten through four years of his relationship with Hillary Clinton in the first 14 minutes of his speech. The pair got married in 1975 after he pursued her for four years through law school and more.
“I married my best friend,” he said. “I was still in awe after more than four years of being around her at how smart and strong and loving and caring she was, and I really hope that her choosing me and rejecting my advice to pursue her own career was a decision she would never regret.”
Update 10:13 p.m.: Former President Bill Clinton has taken the stage and has begun a stemwinder about how he and Hillary Clinton first met. It’s a story he’s told before. But it never fails to get a rise out of a room full of Democrats.
“In the spring of 1971 I met a girl,” Clinton said, and he was off: Into how they had a class together, how he started at her in the library at Yale and how she finally first approached him.
“I found her magnetic,” he said.
Update 9:39 p.m.: Howard Dean had lost the room. The former governor of Vermont, 2004 candidate for president and Democratic National Committee chairman had given an able yet unremarkable speech for a good seven minutes. He waited until the end to get good.
After slamming Donald Trump and Mike Pence for a laundry list of reasons, Dean focused on the fight against terrorism.
Presidential hopeful former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean yells ‘YEAHHHH!!!’ while addressing supporters during his caucus night party in West Des Moines, Iowa, in this Jan. 19, 2004, file photo. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
“We need a president whose decisions are rooted in facts,” Dean said. “We need a president who will defend our interests around the world” including in the fight against ISIS, he said, “not with ignorant bluster and bombast, but with toughness and resolve.”
Then Dean showed he does still have a sense of humor. He relieved “the scream,” that unfortunate moment in early 2004 when Dean underperformed in the Iowa caucus and aggressively announced his plan to travel the country in search of voters.
That woke up the crowd.
Update 9:00 p.m.: The Sanders protest inside the media tent has ended. It was not immediately clear if any one was arrested.
Update 8:33 p.m.: The “Mothers of the Movement,” a group of moms who have lost their children to gun violence, said Clinton grieved with them.
“Hillary Clinton isn’t afraid to say black lives matter,” Lucia McBath of Marietta said.
McBath’s son Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old son was shot and killed in the parking lot of a Florida convenience store during a 2012 argument over loud music.
Clinton, McBath said, “isn’t afraid to sit at a table with grieving mothers and bear the full force of our anguish. She doesn’t build walls around her heart. Not only did she listen to our problems, she invited us to become part of the solution.”
Sybrina Fulton, Geneva Reed-Veal, Lucy McBath, Gwen Carr, Cleopatra Pendleton, Maria Hamilton, Lezley McSpadden and Wanda Johnson from Mothers of the Movement speak during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Update 7:38 p.m.: A large group of Bernie Sanders’ supporters have occupied one of three media tents here outside the Wells Fargo Center where the Democratic National Convention is being held.
Check out the Georgia Politics News Now Facebook Live on the protest here:
Update 7:30 p.m: “Greetings from the battleground state of Georgia.”
That was how former state Sen. Jason Carter opened his address to the Democratic National Convention to assert that Georgia is in play this November thanks to Donald Trump’s rise. Carter, a 2014 candidate for Georgia governor, introduced his grandfather, ex-President Jimmy Carter.
“I promise he is itching to get on the campaign trail and elect Hillary Clinton,” he said.
Then it was time for the former president’s videotaped address, one in which he contrasted Hillary Clinton’s message of working “to hold people up” with Trump’s acceptance speech.
“To all of you young Americans I say: Stay engaged, stay involved and be sure to vote in November.”
Former Georgia State Senator Jason Carter waves to the delegates before speaking during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Update 7:01 p.m.: Bernie Sanders personally delivered the votes of his home state of Vermont after the delegation asked to be moved to the end of the roll call. It was an attempt to put a lid on the nomination and yet another effort from Sanders to quell the idea that the party remains divided.
Former Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the Vermont delegates cast their votes for President of the United States during the second day session of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
Update 6:51 p.m.: Hillary Clinton is officially the first woman nominated by a major political to be president of the United States.
Shortly after 6:30 p.m., Clinton received the votes necessary to capture the nomination.
Clinton will accept the nomination during her speech on Thursday, the final day of the Democratic National Convention.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – JULY 26: The crowd cheers after formally nominating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center, July 26, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received the number of votes needed to secure the party’s nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Philadelphia, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Democratic National Convention kicked off July 25. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Update 5:44 p.m.: Georgia delegates just cast 29 votes for Bernie Sanders and 87 votes for Hillary Clinton.
Democratic Party of Georgia Chair DuBose porter led off the state’s time in delivering the vote.
“Our state has been and will continue to be the epicenter of civil and human rights,” Porter said. “Home to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King and where the march of social justice is carried on by civil rights legends like our own Congressman John Lewis. And home to the 39th president of the United States, a Democrat, Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalyn Carter.”
First vice chair Nikema Williams then took the microphone and said Democrats in Georgia are working to move the state from a “deep shade of red to a deep shade of purple.”
Georgia, she said, “is a beacon of progress and hope, and that serves as a celebration of the diversity that has cemented Georgia as the next battle ground state in the United States.”
Williams than passed to John Lewis, who again was greeted by a massive roar from the crowd. Lewis said the state was casting the majority of its votes “for the next president of the United States, Hillary Clinton!”
The delegates from Georgia casts their for President of the United States during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Updated 5:34 p.m.: Na’ilah Amaru, a former combat veteran and immigrant to America, followed Lewis in nominating Clinton.
Amaru is a graduate of Georgia State University and a former Atlanta resident.
“The first time I saw Hillary, she was on TV addressing a panel of men with such confidence and ownership of self. Her poise and presence fundamentally changed how I would claim my own space in the world. I was 11,” Amaru said. “As an immigrant, a combat veteran, a woman of color, and my mothers’ daughter, I am American. My story is our story. The story of America.
Updated at 5:30 p.m.: U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Atlanta, seconded the nomination of Hillary Clinton on Tuesday as the first woman candidate for president representing a major party. Said Lewis:
“My beloved Democrats, there are forces in America that want to take us backwards. They want to undo 50 years of progress this Nation has made under Democratic leadership. We’ve come too far. We’ve made too much progress and we’re not going back, we’re going forward.”
Lewis’ participation has an important historical footnote. It represented a final reparation for Lewis’ difficult decision in 2008 to abandon his support for Hillary Clinton – a longtime friend and ally – for Barack Obama. Lewis said this evening that he was ready to make history again:
“Eight years ago, our party nominated and elected the first person of color to ever serve in the White House not just for one, but two terms.
“Tonight we will shatter that glass ceiling again. We’re the party of tomorrow, and we will build a true democracy in America.
“I must tell you, I have known Hillary Clinton for many years. She is one of the most qualified candidates to ever run for president. She is a leader, sometimes sailing against the wind to break down the barriers that divide us. She’s smart, just smart. She could have done anything with her life, but she decided long ago she didn’t want to just do well, she wanted to do good.”
The first to nominate Clinton was U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who declared herself “the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right.”
The roll call vote, which should take about an hour, is now proceeding.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis speaks at the 2016 Democratic National Convention on July 26, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Updated at 5:10 p.m.: Bernie Sanders’ delegates are getting one great last stand here as the nominating process officially opens. Three Sanders backers added his name into consideration but all three also urged Democrats to get behind presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton. U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and others touted Sanders’ successes and Sanders himself stood from somewhere and accepted their applause.
PHILADELPHIA — Greetings from the Wells Fargo Center where Day Two of the Democratic National Convention is about to start. The first real action comes at 5 p.m. when the official roll call vote of the states begins. It’s when each state announces it’s vote for the presidential nomination.
Georgia U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta will be among a trio of Democrats that formally nominates Hillary Clinton.
The Atlanta Democrat, an icon of the civil rights movement who has served in the House of Representatives for 15 terms, will second the nomination after it’s offered by retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the longest-serving woman in Washington who is credited as being the first female lawmaker to wear pants on the Senate floor, among other firsts.
Notably absent from the group is Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was reportedly in talks for much of the day to nominate Clinton, a gesture intended to promote party unity after some of his supporters continued to indicate they would not support his one-time rival. CNN reported earlier Tuesday afternoon that Sanders was in talks with the Clinton campaign to allow the Vermont delegation to formally call for Clinton’s nomination by unanimous concent.
