NPR: So Who Does Win All These Democratic Delegates?

So Who Does Win All These Democratic Delegates?

One of the enduring questions on the Democratic side as the night unfolds is how the vote tallies will be translated into delegates. There are no winner-take-all states for the Democrats. Instead, the Dems award delegates in a maddeningly complex proportional formula that folds in how a candidate does not only statewide but by smaller districts. So the margins of victory — and the distribution of votes — start to matter a lot.

One highly speculative but highly engaging posting that's been getting a fair amount of play around the blogosphere comes from Chris Bowers on Open Left.com, a liberal blog. Bowers totes up some of the numbers and cites the split of the votes and states between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to make this grandiose declaration:

"It can no longer be avoided: super delegates will determine the Democratic Presidential nominee this year."

Let's pause to remember those "super delegates" are the party elders: officeholders and former office holders and, oh, well, let's be honest about it, Sen. Clinton's husband, whose allegiances we can likely guess. Bowers continues:

"On Super Tuesday, 22 states and a couple territories with a combined 1,688 pledged delegates will hold nominating contests ... From this point, quick math shows that after Super Tuesday, only 1,428 pledged delegates will still be available. Now, here is where the problem shows up. According to current polling averages, the largest possible victory for either candidate on Super Tuesday will be Clinton 889 pledged delegates, to 799 pledged delegates for Obama."

This is Bowers' math, not officially blessed by NPR's delegate-gaugers or Stephen Hawking or anyone like that. Still, he sketches out a reasonably plausible scenario that suggests an intense courtship of the super delegates after the breakneck pursuit of votes across the country.

-- David Folkenflik

11:05 PM ET | 02- 5-2008 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

OK...so who are these super delegates and how are they chosen? I'm pretty sure I never voted for one--what happened to representative democracy? BTW, Bowers' math looks pretty twisted: 22+ states have 1688 delegates, but Bowers' claims that only (?!) 1428 will be available after today. In other words, ~7 of 8 delegates will be committed to one of the democratic candidates after super Tuesday...after nearly half the US has voted! Come one NPR, tell us how this works or where to find out. This looks pretty bogus.

Sent by Pete Nelson | 11:56 PM ET | 02-05-2008

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