What happens to a candidate’s delegates when they drop out of the primaries?

Washington — Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after former President Donald Trump accumulated a seemingly insurmountable lead of delegates on Super Tuesday, but what happens to her delegates depends on a number of factors. 

Haley only won one state on Super Tuesday, Vermont, which followed her only other primary victory in Washington, D.C., earlier this week. The former president is likely to clinch the nomination on March 12. 

Haley’s path to the nomination would have become even more difficult after March 15, when Republican Party rules give states the option to award all of their delegates to the candidate with the most votes. 

In the earlier contests, most states award delegates proportionally to the percentage of vote that candidates won either statewide or in individual congressional districts. Some states require candidates to reach a certain threshold of support for any delegates which can be as high as 20%, according to Republican Party rules, unless one candidate wins a major portion of the votes — usually 50% — and it becomes winner-take-all.  

How are delegates technically supposed to vote at their convention? 

Josh Putnam, a political scientist who specializes in delegate rules, said delegates in “the vast majority of cases are locked in” to a candidate heading into the Republican National Convention. 

A candidate who wins a primary or caucus is typically allocated delegate slots that will be filled with actual people at the states’ party conventions later on. But if a candidate drops out before those delegate slots are filled with their supporters, those spots may be filled with people who are loyal to another candidate, Putnam said. 

“For the most part, none of those slots have been filled yet,” Putnam said of the delegate slots that Haley has been awarded. “If she and her campaign remain active in that selection process, then they may actually be Haley delegates. But if she disengages, then it’s likely that the state party fills those delegate slots with Trump-sympathetic folks.” 

Putnam thought it would be unlikely for Haley to participate in the selection process for such a small number of delegates. 

“It’s not going to have that big of an impact at the convention,” he said of whether those delegates are ultimately Haley supporters. “It’s not going to make a difference with respect to who the nominee is going to be.” 

Why delegates might vote for someone other than their candidate

The candidate a delegate ends up voting for at the national convention in July also depends on state party rules. 

In Iowa, for example, delegates for Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are bound to their candidates until the national convention. But under state rules, if Trump is the only candidate officially nominated at the convention, then the entire Iowa delegation votes for him.  

There are about 150 unbound delegates from a handful of states and U.S. territories who are not required to vote for the candidate who won their state and are free to support the candidate of their choosing. 

Current Republican delegate count for 2024 for Trump and Haley