Who are the Democratic Super Delegates? [View all]

Most people have no idea, really. Let me see if I can explain the process a little bit. Delegates to the Democratic National Presidential Convention come in two varieties, Pledged and Unpledged. Most delegates are pledged delegates, who are committed to vote for a particular candidate in at least the first round of voting for who will become the nominee. These are generally elected at state conventions, based on the results of primary elections or caucus voting. For example, if a state sends 36 pledged delegates to the national convention, and the primary election or caucus is divided 66% and 33% between two candidates, the candidate with 66% of the vote will get 24 pledged delegates, while the other candidate will get 12.

Those are pledged delegates. At the convention, they are expected to vote according to the results in their state, at least for the first round of voting.

There are some other types of pledged delegates, including at-large delegates who are also elected at state conventions, as compared to district-level delegates.

Then, there are unpledged delegates, who are not required to vote based on primary or caucus votes. These are fewer in number than the pledged delegates, and are selected based on other criteria. For example, Democratic Members of Congress and Senators are automatically delegates to the national convention. Democratic Governors, too, are usually delegates. All of those are unpledged delegates and may vote as they choose, even on the first ballot. Another group of unpledged delegates are generally made up of a state's members of the Democratic National Committee. That number, like all of the delegates, is based on the state's population. There may be a few other unpledged delegates, as well, depending on the state.

Those unpledged delegates are what are popularly called "Super Delegates." Their votes for the nominee at the National Convention are not necessarily based on the primary votes in their state or their state's caucus results. They are independent of all that, and are automatically delegates to the National Convention.

That's why people are paying so much attention to endorsements in the primary campaign by Congress Members and Senators. Those people will all be Super Delegates at the convention. You may not know who your Democratic National Committee members are in your state, but you can look that up on your state's Democratic Party website. Their votes, too, are not dependent on election results, and some will endorse candidates and telegraph their vote before the convention.

For example, in Minnesota, which sends a total of 94 delegates to the convention, only 16 are Super Delegates, made up of the following:

16 Unpledged PLEO delegates:
7 Democratic National Committee members.
7 Members of Congress (2 Senators and 5 Representatives).
1 Governor.
1 Distinguished Party Leader (former Vice President Walter "Fritz" Mondale).

So, how important are these Super Delegates? Well, you need to know their numbers. There will be a total of 4483 voting delegates at the convention. Of those, only 714 will be unpledged PLEOs or Super Delegates. They have considerable influence, particularly if the other delegates are more or less equally divided. If there is much of a difference between the number of pledged delegates for the candidates, the Super Delegates have less impact.

Here's a cool website, where you can look up your own state and see how delegates are chosen and how many delegates your state sends to the convention:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/D

The more you know, the more you understand.