The Independent View: How GOP Delegates of Suspended Candidates are Counted

Where do suspended GOP candidate's delegates go?

Rubio had amassed 169 delegates, Carson has 8, Bush has 4, Fiorina has 1, Huckabee has 1, and Paul has 1.

Just like the delegate allocation processes themselves, the rules governing the fate of the delegates of a candidate who's withdrawn from the race are incredibly complicated. The Republican National Committee (RNC) allows the states to set their own rules, so each state is different.

Here's a guide to how the states handle this and what to expect going forward:

States where delegates remain bound:

- Arkansas
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Massachusetts
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Virginia

However, the rules for how many ballots each delegates is bound for differ by state. Some, like Virginia, only bind them on the first ballot, others require them to vote for throughout the process, no matter how many ballots it takes.

The other potential wrinkle for these delegates that are bound is the current RNC's Rule 40, a relatively obscure part of Convention rules that require a candidate to have the support of a majority of delegates in eight states in order to be eligible to be nominated at the convention. Experts caution that there's a good chance this rule could change before Republicans arrive in Cleveland this summer, so it still remains to be seen.

States where delegates can or will become unbound:

- Alabama
- District of Columbia
- Kansas
- Louisiana
- Minnesota
- New Hampshire
- Puerto Rico
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Wyoming

In some states, the delegates of a candidate who's left the race become unbound and are able to vote for whomever they wish. For a few of those states, this is automatic; in others, Candidates need to formally release them for this to happen. Texas, and Kansas, for example, require a formal release of delegates before they become unbound. What's more, each state has a different standard by which a withdrawal from the race must be certified: sometimes there's paperwork to be filed by a campaign, while other states require only verbal acknowledgement. In Minnesota, interestingly enough, delegates initially won by a candidate can return to them if the candidate chooses to re-enter the race. So, if a candidate were to rejoin the race for some reason, they would get their delegates back.

States where candidate's delegates can or will be reallocated to another candidate:

- Alaska
- Kentucky
- Nevada

In a small handful of states, the states' rules allow for those delegates to be reallocated to other candidates ahead of the convention, all in different ways, of course. In Kentucky, now-unbound delegates must meet together with the state's bound delegates to hold a secret ballot through which the unbound delegates will be re-allocated to another candidate. In Alaska, when a candidate leaves the race his or her delegates are simply proportionally redistributed to the remaining candidates. And in Nevada, the withdrawing candidate has three options: the bound delegates can be kept; or those delegates can be released to vote for whichever candidate they like; or at the state convention, the delegates to be proportionally re-allocated to the remaining candidates.

As the calendar progresses, the other factor to keep in mind is that delegates are not simply votes on paper for a given candidate: they're human beings who, often after one or more ballots at the convention, are free to vote for whomever they please.

This means the remaining three campaigns will be fighting fiercely where possible to ensure the people who get slated as delegates are people who support their candidate, so once they're no longer bound they can switch over and shift the delegate tide potentially in another candidate's direction. This practice is especially critical for Cruz and Kasich, who are likely be entering the convention at a delegate disadvantage to Trump: if they're able to pick up some of of the other candidates delegates on the second ballot, it could be a big boost.

Each state selects its delegates differently: in some states the candidates submit their own slates of delegates, while in others they're selected through state-level conventions during the spring. In any case, if the GOP race is headed to a contested convention those delegate slots will be more important than ever.