Many campaigns do not have a plan for what they leave behind. With the South Carolina primary on Saturday fast approaching, and about a third of all delegates up for grabs on March 3, some of the six candidates still seeking the Democratic nomination could find themselves confronting that problem soon. (Tom Steyer and Pete Buttigieg announced ahead of Super Tuesday that they were ending their campaigns.)

“You literally go from building a multimillion-dollar start-up to being shut down overnight,” said Matt Terrill, the former chief of staff for Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign, which gave many leftover shirts to volunteers. “It’s a lot easier to have people help you when you win to shut down a campaign.”

Surplus items often end up in storage or in the homes of staff members and volunteers. Some are given a second life with a new campaign. Most are thought to be recycled or thrown away.

“If somebody doesn’t deliberately collect them or hold on to them, almost all of it disappears,” said Jon Grinspan, a curator of political history at the National Museum of American History who collects presidential campaign memorabilia for the museum.