2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumTo win the nomination without Supers would require a candidate to average 59% - 41%
From the beginning of the nomination season to the end of the nomination season, in a one on one race, a candidate would need an average victory margin of 18% to secure the nomination without supers.
And that is to secure it after the last primary vote. The math would be much, much more daunting to try and hit that threshold in April or in March or if more than two candidates are in the running.
The fact is, the Democratic system is designed specifically to require the vote of superdelegates to secure the nomination. It is designed so that the leading candidate must make his or her case to the party itself (the majority of supers) and not just to the voters in each state.
Like this set up or hate it, the Democratic process is not set up for early knockouts or knockouts at all until supers have their say.
dawg
(10,626 posts)Superdelegates are undemocratic and impractical.
Godhumor
(6,437 posts)But, yes, it is interesting that 50%+1 pledged delegate does not technically win you the nomination.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)The supers should decide after observing the primary and what the candidates say. I don't think it's right that they chose right out of the gate.
dawg
(10,626 posts)If they vote for the candidate who won the most pledged delegates, they aren't accomplishing anything.
If they vote against the candidate with the most pledged delegates, they are subverting the will of the people.
In one scenario, they are useless; in the other they are actively harmful.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)At the starting line. It is practically impossible to beat someone with a 20 percent advantage first day.
LoverOfLiberty
(1,438 posts)In a multi-candidate race where someone like Trump walks away with the most delegates.
In a 2 person race, they will go with the one who has the most delegates. The only controversy over them should really be if the pledged delegate race was very, very close.
dawg
(10,626 posts)In a multi-candidate race, a candidate who receives a plurality, but not a majority of the votes, can be defeated on the second or third ballot by the elected delegates.
I don't see the need for non-elected delegates to ever be involved in the process.
CrowCityDem
(2,348 posts)Godhumor
(6,437 posts)jcgoldie
(11,657 posts)There are 4051 pledged delegates she needs 2026 for a majority. That is inevitable but she is still a couple hundred shy. It won't happen until California.
joshcryer
(62,287 posts)So it is absolutely a technicality more so to force the candidates to make their case. Clinton famously sent the superdelegates a memo about why they should switch to her in 2008. Funnily, if she removed the bits about Bush, and changed a few names around, she could resend the same letter.
She should just to be cheeky: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/05/clintons-closing-argument-to-superdelegates/53314/
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Demsrule86
(68,788 posts)Democrats often do...as we have proportional voting...this is not the GOP ...there is no magic number...so tell Bernie it is time to fly away home to Vermont...The Supers vote with the candidate who has the most pledged delegates and guess what it won't Bernie.
JCMach1
(27,590 posts)Superdelegates should only be allowed a vote if there is no winner, or some serious situation (such as assassination).
Maybe make all primaries before April 1 Proportional, everything after, Winner Take All. That would actually raise the importance of later races.
Sancho
(9,071 posts)If super delegates voted proportionally, Hillary would still be ahead.
The creation of the super delegates goes back to 1968, which was a mess. There is a reason for super delegates. If it was a 3 way race between Biden, Hillary, and Bernie - and it was Biden (31%), Hillary (31%) and Bernie (38%)....BUT who had the least money, least endorsements, and polled the worst against the imaginary GOP candidate (Romney), then the super delegates would override the pledged delegates and pick the BEST CANDIDATE. If they picked Bernie, all the Blemmings would be thrilled and love the system!! It's not appropriate to only approve of the system when it benefits you, but disapprove when it doesn't!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate
The rules implemented by the McGovern-Fraser Commission shifted the balance of power to primary elections and caucuses, mandating that all delegates be chosen via mechanisms open to all party members.[7] As a result of this change the number of primaries more than doubled over the next three presidential election cycles, from 17 in 1968 to 35 in 1980.[7] Despite the radically increased level of primary participation, with 32 million voters taking part in the selection process by 1980, the Democrats proved largely unsuccessful at the ballot box, with the 1972 presidential campaign of McGovern and the 1980 re-election campaign of Jimmy Carter resulting in landslide defeats.[7] Democratic Party affiliation skidded from 41 percent of the electorate at the time of the McGovern-Fraser Commission report to just 31 percent in the aftermath of the 1980 electoral debacle.[7]
Further soul-searching took place among party leaders, who argued that the pendulum had swung too far in the direction of primary elections over insider decision-making, with one May 1981 California white paper declaring that the Democratic Party had "lost its leadership, collective vision and ties with the past," resulting in the nomination of unelectable candidates.[8] A new 70-member commission headed by Governor of North Carolina Jim Hunt was appointed to further refine the Democratic Party's nomination process, attempting to balance the wishes of rank-and-file Democrats with the collective wisdom of party leaders and to thereby avoid the nomination of insurgent candidates exemplified by the liberal McGovern or the anti-Washington conservative Carter and lessening the potential influence of single-issue politics in the selection process.[8]
Following a series of meetings held from August 1981 to February 1982, the Hunt Commission issued a report which recommended the set aside of unelected and unpledged delegate slots for Democratic members of Congress and for state party chairs and vice chairs (so-called "superdelegates" .[8] While the original Hunt plan, superdelegates were to represent 30% of all delegates to the national convention, but when it was finally implemented by the Democratic National Committee for the 1984 election, the number of superdelegates was set 14%. Over time this percentage has gradually increased, until by 2008 the percentage stands at approximately 20% of total delegates to the Democratic Party nominating convention.[9]