Former President Bill Clinton is a superdelegate; so is current Sen. Bernie Sanders. They make up 15 percent of all delegates out of 4, — down from 20 percent in And they are free to support the presidential candidate of their choice at the convention. One catch: Superdelegates have to be present at the convention for their vote to count. But some caution here: In the race, no more than about 30 superdelegates switched from Clinton to Barack Obama before Clinton dropped out of the race in early June , according to former Obama campaign officials.
And that is after Obama took the lead in pledged delegates. Superdelegates can support whomever they want, despite how their state voted. Yet even under such a system — where superdelegate support goes to the candidate who won the state or territory — Clinton would still top Sanders in superdelegate pledges, to Since they were established beginning in the presidential cycle as a way to give party leaders more say in the process, superdelegates have never changed the outcome of the primary season.
And to complicate things even more, the Democratic and Republican parties have different rules for choosing their nominees.
During a presidential election, the two major political parties, Democrats and Republicans, pick their candidate at their national conventions. Members of a political party can apply to be delegates, and often include local politicians, early supporters of candidates, and other activists. Most delegates represent a congressional district.
During primaries and caucuses, presidential candidates campaign to get the votes from members of their party and, in some primaries, independents. Some Republican delegates are awarded proportionally, while some states use a winner-take-all system during the primaries. The Democratic party uses a fairly complex formula if you ask us to determine the allocation of delegates to candidates.
Now, onto superdelegates. They are also called unpledged or automatic delegates. Use PLEO , taken from the initial letters of party leaders and elected officials.
The term superdelegate dates back to the early s. They have long caused friction in the Democratic party, as they can support a candidate even if the public did not and thus many feel have undue power. They are at the center of the debate over the degree of influence primary voters have compared to party insiders in choosing the candidate. Due to controversies over superdelegates , the Democratic party reformed its rules about superdelegates for the election. At the party convention, superdelegates cannot vote during the first ballot.
The only time superdelegates directly exerted their influence was in , when they pushed Walter Mondale to the nomination after he won the pledged delegate count by too narrow a margin to secure victory. Mondale would win only one state plus D. In addition to a certain number of delegates based on its size, each state has three delegates from the Republican National Committee RNC to represent it at the national convention.
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