The Miami Herald: What presidential losers do with millions in unspent campaign cash

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“My suspicion is that some of them are sitting on the money,” said Larry Noble, former chief counsel of the Federal Election Commission and general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center.

While Sanders can “go out and speak for other candidates” such as Clinton, Noble said, he cannot simply transfer his campaign war chest to the Democratic nominee’s account.

“They can try to raise contributions after they dropped out, but that’s very hard to do,” Noble said. “What a lot of them do is carry the debt, and if they decide to run for another federal office they transfer the debt.”
 
“It’s a rough situation for vendors,” Noble said. “If you have a losing campaign you may not get paid.”
 
“Some of them probably sit on the money,” Noble said. “They cannot give money to federal candidates but can give to state candidates. In some circumstances they can give it to other party committees or they can keep the money in the super PAC.”
 
“It’s a rough situation for vendors,” Noble said. “If you have a losing campaign you may not get paid.”
 

Due to the rancor of the Republican primaries and candidates like Bush publicly saying they won’t support nominee Trump, Noble said that lots of super PAC money would sit around until the next election cycle, or go to super PACs not affiliated with the presidential race.

Vanquished candidate committees and their associated super PACs have one other option for unspent campaign donations.

“They can always return it to the donors,” Noble said.