What happens to unspent campaign money from the various candidates when they lose?

What is legally supposed to happen with the money and what ends up happening ? Please cite source of information.What happens to unspent campaign money from the various candidates when they lose?
Most campaigns do not wind up with surpluses, they have debts, most of which are forgiven. But if they have money, they can contribute the money to charity or another committee. They can even save the money for a future election or pay themselves a salary as they start to campaign for the next election immediately after losing the last one.What happens to unspent campaign money from the various candidates when they lose?
They keep it. Actually their respective parties usually ask them to give it to their parties committee, but most keep a substantial amount of the money.





John Kerry had trouble with the DNC earlier this year because he had about 14 million left over from the 2004 elections that he had not given to the committee. His aids were stating that it was Kerry's and he was entitled to do what he wanted to with the money. He did decide to give some of the money back, but not all.