Quote:
Originally Posted by Kavvy
Ya but... if an candidate endorse another candidate, don't they get their delegates?
Why is no one talking about this? This could be a reason why Trump can't win. Or am I totally off?
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I don't believe that's the way it works. Once a candidate drops out, their delegates go to the convention unbound. They may feel they should vote for the candidate's endorsement, but they're under no obligation to do so.
In fact, in the republican primaries, the delegates are appointed from a state list of delegates, and are not chosen by the candidates. So they may vote for their own preference once their bound candidate drops out. They can even vote for their own preference in the second round of a contested convention, even if their bound candidate is still in!
edit:
Actually, there's a lot of state-to-state variation here. I just learned that in South Carolina, if the candidate you're bound to drops out, then you're bound to the 2nd place candidate in your district (or in the state, if you're at large). So, in the unlikely event that Trump withdraws (or slightly more likely event of a tragic escalator mishap), all those at large delegates would go to Rubio. But it's still a free-for-all after the first round of the convention.
And some states do use candidate lists, including New Hampshire. But it's less common on the Republican side.
I also attempted to read through the rules for
North Dakota (whose delegates are 'unbound'). It's absolutely byzantine.
Further edit:
And you know what? Some states (Like Nevada) actually say that if a candidate drops out, that candidate can require Nevada delegates bound to them to vote for a specific other candidate still in the race.
It's basically 50 totally different processes (or I guess 100, if you're counting both parties).
Another edit (WHAT AM I DOING READING REPUBLICAN PRIMARY RULES AT 12:30 ON A SATURDAY NIGHT? I DON'T KNOW BUT I CAN'T STOP!!):
So something that I didn't realize before: you hear a lot of talk about winner take all states. But at least on the Republican sides, they're unlikely to play out as winner take all any time soon. Because many have a winner-take-all threshold, which must be at least 50%. However, there's also a back-door-winner-take-all scenario in most of these states, where there's a threshold that candidates must clear to be eligible. So, for example, In Alabama, Trump would need to clear 50% to win all their at large delegates. Or, he would need every other candidate to finish under 20%. So if Trump, Cruz, and Rubio are all in this for the long haul, that means it's going to be very hard for any candidate to hit those 50% or higher thresholds. The more I read, the more it looks like a contested convention is going to be the outcome of all this, unless Rubio collapses.