Thursday, April 24, 2008

Superdelegate misconception

Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, in a CQ article on superdelegates:
He also rejected the suggestion that publicly undecided superdelegates start declaring themselves now as a way of wrapping up the nomination race. “What if the undecided go 50-50? You’re in the same position,” Hoyer said.
This is just not true. If all the undecided superdelegates declared now, and at least 120 (out of 300) went for Obama, he would win the nomination by June. In fact, he would probably win the nomination by May. Saying that superdelegates will "decide" the race only means that they could make either Obama or Clinton the winner, not that if they favor one candidate, that candidate will win. Clinton has to be favored by a significant margin of superdelegates, because Obama has a significant margin of pledged delegates.

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