Newt Gingrich-Bound Georgia Delegates Sit in
Waiting
Former
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich won 52 Georgia delegates in
March. Even though he dropped from the race, those bound delegates must vote
for Gingrich this summer at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.,
until he releases them to the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney. Gingrich has
yet to do that.
Gingrich
spokesman R.C. Hammond told ABC News that the Gingrich campaign is working
closely with the Romney campaign on the delegates and, under their advice, will
release the delegates at a certain time. For now, they’re waiting.
“If you look at
past campaigns, they’ve held on to their delegates until much later. Most wait
until August,” Hammond said.
Waiting to
release the delegates until the convention could prevent questions of where
those newly unbound delegates will go. With Ron Paul in the race all the way to
the convention, the Gingrich campaign holding on to the delegates actually
could help Romney because there is no stigma or question of Romney not being
able to line up unbound delegates.
Randy Evans, a
Georgia Republican delegate and former senior adviser to the Gingrich campaign,
told ABC News that he believes Gingrich will make the decision on releasing his
bound delegates around the time Romney reaches 1,144 delegates. Romney is
expected to hit that mark during the Texas Republican primary.
“Newt does have
to release the delegates. Otherwise, we are bound to him for the first two
ballots,” Evans said. “When we filled out our paperwork at the convention last
week, we signed an oath saying we were committed to be a Gingrich or a Romney
delegate.”
Romney received
21 delegates from the Georgia primary.
Elected Georgia
delegate Stefan Passantino told ABC News he’s legally bound to vote for
Gingrich at the convention and would gladly do so.
“Among the
Georgia delegation, they remain very true and strong supporters to Newt to this
day,” Passantino said. “There will not be much resistance to support him as
long as he is seeking that support.”
Passantino said
that although the delegates, once released, will be able to cast their vote for
whomever, he suspects they will mostly go Romney’s direction.
“If Newt
releases the delegates and tells us to get behind Romney, I suspect then there
will be overwhelming willingness to get behind him,” Passantino said.
Though
Passantino said there was a “very vocal Ron Paul minority” at the Georgia state
convention, they were not able to overthrow the slate of delegates selected,
most of which are likely Gingrich supporters and will go on to support Romney,
not Paul.
“There was an
effort made to have other nominations, but the delegates at the state
convention voted to close the slate,” Passantino said. “This is unlike what
you’ve seen in other conventions and people being selected from the floor. That
did not happen in Georgia.”
Another
Gingrich-bound delegate, Linda Herren, who serves as the Georgia national
committeewoman, did not endorse a candidate in the Georgia race, but told ABC
News that Gingrich’s bound delegates are essentially in waiting.
“That’s the
rules, so my opinion doesn’t really count. I assume he will release at some
point,” Herren said.
While the
delegates bound to Gingrich have to wait for his OK to cast their vote for
someone else at the convention, Herren said, “from a practical standpoint, I
don’t see that happening.”
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