Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman whose outsider campaign has both galvanized millions of voters and divided the Republican Party, is the 2016 US GOP presidential nominee.

The New Yorker’s embrace by the Republican National Convention marks a remarkable moment in U.S. political history and validates a campaign that shattered precedent, defied pundits and usurped the GOP establishment.

His son Donald Trump, Jr., cast the votes for the New York delegation that put the billionaire businessman over the top of the 1,237 delegates he needed to clinch the nomination, as any talk of disruptive protest votes or walkouts dissipated.

“It is my honor to be able to throw Donald Trump over the top in the delegate count tonight with 89 delegates,” Donald Jr. said, surrounded by three of Trump’s other children -- Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany.

“Congratulations Dad, we love you.”

An emotional Ivanka Trump told CNN’s Dana Bash immediately after her father was confirmed as the Republican nominee, “It’s unbelievable, it’s surreal, I am so proud of my father.”

“I have never underestimated my father, ever,” Eric Trump said.

Donald Jr. was tearing up when he told Bash that putting his father over the top was “one of the more surreal moments of my life other perhaps than the birth of my children. To be able to do that is historic, its awesome.”

Trump is scheduled to address the convention via remote from New York in the evening, but tweeted shortly after the vote.

“Such a great honor to be the Republican Nominee for President of the United States. I will work hard and never let you down! AMERICA FIRST!” CNN reports.

-Agencies