If a candidate drops out, what happens to any delegates he had won?

[dt_]

(see title)

If for instance Duncan Hunter drops out of the race, what happens to that delegate he won in Wyoming? Does it go to another candidate, is it simply dropped for all purposes, or something else?

[Naraku]

Most candidates endorse someone and turn over their delegates basically.

[Bradley in DC]

It depends.

State law may or may not "bind" a delegate to a candidate. If not "bound", then that delegate is free to support whom they choose.

In states where they are bound, it is likely that they would be "released" by the candidate who may have endorsed another.

Usually those delegates (bound and unbound) would support the candidate endorsed by the one to whom they were originally pledged.

[Redcard]

Something to remember here.. when you "win" delegates, you don't have those delegates in your pocket yet. They're not "your" delegates. They don't become YOURS until they vote for you at the convention.

In most cases, I think with the major 2 parties, all delegates are bound delegates. So they will generally vote for whomever they initially were supposed to vote for.

If someone drops out, their delegates stay. Remember, it's a plurality, not a majority, for party nomination.

[Bradley in DC]

Something to remember here.. when you "win" delegates, you don't have those delegates in your pocket yet. They're not "your" delegates. They don't become YOURS until they vote for you at the convention.

In most cases, I think with the major 2 parties, all delegates are bound delegates. So they will generally vote for whomever they initially were supposed to vote for.

If someone drops out, their delegates stay. Remember, it's a plurality, not a majority, for party nomination.

Your information here is just factually wrong. No offense.

The state laws binding delegates or not are varied.

A nominee needs to win a majority of the votes. See my posts:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=47114

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=47093

[Redcard]

Your information here is just factually wrong. No offense.

The state laws binding delegates or not are varied.

A nominee needs to win a majority of the votes. See my posts:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=47114

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=47093

No offense taken.

I'm going of the RNC website governing the rules for their delegates/conventions. That might be kinda incorrect for behind the scenes deals, tho.

[Redcard]

Something else to note.. delegates for a state are based on a variety of things, including whether or not the state voted republican in the last election, how many members of the state are republican, whether or not the state has a majority of republican legislators.. etc..

For example, Michigan is under a 50% penalty for a violation of the rules, so they only have 30 delegates. That makes Michigan less important than Iowa, who had 40. South Carolina also violated the rules, so they have only 24 delegates. New Hampshire only had 12 delegates because THEY violated a rule.