“Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!” Trump tweeted.

“I can’t believe he didn’t endorse Trump,” said Cecilia Cdebaca, a Trump delegate from New Mexico. “Maybe Donald Trump was right. Maybe he is ‘Lyin’ Ted.’ Maybe he picks the Bible up and maybe he puts it down and then he lies, because any Christian would forgive.”

Later, Trump turned to his newly named running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence to close Day 3 of the convention on a more unifying note.

Pance accepted the vice-presidential nomination and described his running mate as a “good man.”

“I am deeply humbled by your confidence,” Pence told delegates.

Pence, 57, said he “joined this campaign in a heartbeat” because Republicans chose Trump, a man “who never quits, who never backs down.”

The conservative evangelical Christian and former congressman could serve to steady Trump’s heaving and swaying campaign ship and reassure voters alarmed by Trump’s rhetoric.

He was joined on stage by the New York billionaire after his speech, when the two men hugged awkwardly as Trump leaned in to plant a kiss on his running mate but appeared to miss.

The gulf between Pence’s endorsement and Cruz’s reluctance is emblematic of the turmoil still roiling the GOP.

Trump did get a boost from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, one of the 16 Republicans whose White House dreams were vanquished during the primary. Still, Walker suggested he was driven as much by a desire to keep Democrat Hillary Clinton out of the White House as admiration for his party’s nominee.

“Let me be clear: a vote for anyone other than Donald Trump in November is a vote for Hillary Clinton,” Walker said.

After two nights of low-energy speeches, the crowd packed into the arena was noticeably more energetic Wednesday night, dancing in the aisles and waving signs reading, “America Deserves Better Than Hillary.”

Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump employee, spoke movingly about the businessman’s strong family. Patton, who is black, said she was proud to support Trump “not just in spite of the colour of my skin, but in fact because of the colour of my skin.”

Cruz was harshly critical of Trump in the waning weeks of their primary battle, calling the businessman a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral.” He arrived in Cleveland with an eye on his own political future, holding a rally with hundreds of supporters who greeted him with chants of “2020” — suggesting Cruz’s backers have no interest in seeing Trump become a two-term president.

In his convention address, Cruz spoke at length about the recent stretch of violence across the country. He urged Americans to fight for the families of five police officers killed in his hometown of Dallas, as well as the family of Alton Sterling, a black man killed by police in Louisiana.

While Trump has dominated campaign coverage for months, Clinton has been the negative star of the GOP convention. Speakers have painted an apocalyptic vision of America if she should win and have aggressively challenged her character. While Clinton has been a target of GOP ire for decades, the harshness of the attacks has been striking.

For a third straight night, the crowd repeatedly chanted, “Lock her up.” While anti-Clinton sentiment is an easy way to bring Republicans together, the negativity crossed the line for some in the party.

“Certainly races can be won based on focusing on the opponent,” said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. “But I think we’re at a place in our country’s evolution where it’s particularly important now, with all that’s happened and the concerns that people have, for a positive vision to be laid out.”

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and the Washington Post