CLEVELAND – More than 2,400 delegates met Monday on the Quicken Loans Arena floor to start the Republican National Convention to kick off a week with division and contention within the party instead of unity.
The Never Trump movement — an attempt at blocking presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump from becoming the candidate — initiated an attempt to have a roll call vote of the convention rules after it was passed by a verbal vote.
Yelling erupted from the floor to speed up the vote, as well as yelling to drown out the Never Trump delegates, prior to when the platform was scheduled to be accepted by the delegation.
Nine states requested a motion to have a roll call vote. Three states had pulled out when the vote was called, putting the other six states in an insufficient minority to go ahead with the roll call.
Some state delegations, such as Virginia, changed their rules to allow delegates to vote for whichever candidate they wanted instead of being bound by votes of the primaries, as an attempt to block Trump from becoming the Republican candidate.
Delegates approved the latest Republican party platform Monday evening, the most conservative in recent years. While not available to the public as of Monday evening, the platform denounces same-sex marriages, supports lowering taxes and proposes policy to have private sectors curb high college tuition.
Headliners for speeches later Monday included Melania Trump, wife to Trump, and actor Scott Baio.
Emily Ernsberger
Correction: A previous version of this story reported that six states pulled out and three were left.
