US Republican candidate Donald Trump has added 10 names to the list he says he'd use to fill Supreme Court vacancies if he becomes president, including a senator whose inclusion helped secure the endorsement of former rival Ted Cruz.
The announcement of the new names on Friday, three days before the first presidential debate, appeared to be another attempt by the Republican nominee to solidify support among conservatives still reticent about his candidacy. And it appears to have worked.
Hours after the list was unveiled, Texas Senator Cruz, a one-time rival, finally announced he'd be voting for Trump, after declining to do so during a stunning speech at the party's national convention. In a statement posted on Facebook, Cruz specifically cited Trump's Supreme Court list and its inclusion of his friend and colleague, Utah Senator Mike Lee.
The expansion also adds several minority judges to Trump's previously all-white list, including Venezuelan-born Federico Moreno, a 64-year-old judge of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. It includes an African-American judge, a South Asian judge and a female judge who served in the Marines.
In May, Trump unveiled his original list of 11 federal and state court judges as potential replacements for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. At the time, he was trying to rally conservatives and clinch the nomination.
He and his allies have repeatedly cited control of the Supreme Court as a top reason why Republican sceptics should rally around his candidacy.
"We have a very clear choice in this election. The freedoms we cherish and the constitutional values and principles our country was founded on are in jeopardy,'' Trump said in a statement.
Trump has sometimes varied in his descriptions of the names - at times suggesting they would serve more as a guide to the kinds of judges he'd select rather than a definitive list.
But on Friday, Trump assured the names were set. "This list is definitive and I will choose only from it in picking future justices of the United States Supreme Court,'' he stated.
That commitment and Lee's inclusion appear to have sealed the deal with Cruz, one of Trump's most high-profile hold-outs.
In a Facebook post announcing his decision to endorse a man he'd once called a "pathological liar'' and "utterly amoral,'' Cruz called control of the court the most important issue at stake in the election.
"For some time, I have been seeking greater specificity on this issue, and today the Trump campaign provided that, releasing a very strong list of potential Supreme Court nominees _ including Senator Mike Lee, who would make an extraordinary justice - and making an explicit commitment to nominate only from that list,'' he wrote.
``This commitment matters,'' he added, "and it provides a serious reason for voters to choose to support Trump.''
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