Marco Rubio ending his White House bid after Donald Trump crushed him in his home state of Florida, scrambles the delegate math for the candidates still running.
Under Republican National Committee rules, elected delegates to the GOP presidential nominating convention in Cleveland are bound to vote on the first ballot for the candidate that won the state they represent.
But that rule does not apply when a candidate drops out, party officials confirmed Tuesday evening.
That means most of Rubio’s 163 delegates are free to vote for whichever candidate they want on first floor ballot at the July convention. That could prove highly significant, even decisive, if no Republican by himself reaches the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination by the end of primary season in June.
The contest is now a race between New York businessman Donald Trump, the front-runner, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, his closest competitor. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, fresh off winning his home state and its 66 winner-take-all delegates, also is a factor. A contested convention is now more likely than not.
“No candidate will win 1237 delegates,” Kasich chief strategist John Weaver said in a memo issued to the press.
Ultimately it depends on the rules in each of the states where Rubio won delegates. Some might force delegates to stay bound to candidates who “suspend” their campagins before the July convention. Candidates tend to suspend, rather than officially end their campaigns, for legal reasons.
But delegates who would have been Rubio’s are likely to be the focus of huge attention from the Trump, Cruz and Kasich campaigns, as they try to sway a contested convention in their favor.
