http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/edwards-out.htmlJohn Edwards is dropping out of the race today. What happens to his delegates? First, all of his superdelegates go back into the no endorsement pool. Second, his 4 delegates from New Hampshire and his 8 delegates from South Carolina will go to the convention as Uncommitted. And finally, his delegates from Iowa don't exist anymore, but will be replaced with Clinton or Obama delegates. That's because delegates to the national convention haven't actually been picked yet in Iowa. There are Congressional District (CD) and state conventions still to come, and all his delegates to the CD conventions will have to vote for one of the remaining candidates to the state level convention. We'll get the delegate trackers updated as the day goes on.
Update 1: The post above has gotten a lot of play around the net, but one thing must be corrected.
Iowa: Edwards received 14 delegates from Iowa, but they were split. 5 were state-level delegates, and 9 were CD-level delegates. The CD-level delegates are basically history. First, there are county conventions, and then CD conventions. Since Edwards won't meet the 15% threshold at the county conventions, he won't have any representation at the CD conventions, and won't get any CD-level delegates. Where they go at this point is impossible to say. But he will keep his 5 state-level delegates. By keep, what I mean is that his campaign gets to choose the 5 delegates. Who they end up voting is still up in the air. We'll update the Delegate Tracker.
Update 1A: Turns out I was right in the first place. The state-level delegates are chosen in the state convention, and as Edwards won't meet the 15% threshold, he won't get any state-level delegates either.
Update 2: The South Carolina situation is a bit confusing. But reading the South Carolina Delegate Selection Plan, they essentially have a system similar to Iowa's, except the final number of delegates selected for each candidate have to match the numbers out of the primary. There's no mention of a candidate "releasing" his delegates, so for now, we'll assume Edwards gets to name his 8 delegates. (Who they end up voting for at the convention is another matter).
Update 3: a non-incremental version of this post can be found at MyDD. Also note the following:
There is no first-ballot "vote for your candidate" rule at the Democratic Convention. Technically, any delegate is free to vote for any candidate on any ballot. (There may be state rules mandating a vote - we're still looking into that). Therefore, there is no such thing as a "legal" release of delegates. There is a political "release" - almost all delegates will vote for their candidate unless their candidate tells them they don't have to. But from a Rules point of view, a "release" of delegates mean nothing.
And therefore, it doesn't matter whether Edwards "ended" his campaign or "suspended" it as far as his delegates go. My guess is he will tell any delegates he has left that they can vote for who they want, or he could endorse someone and tell his delegates to vote for that person. But it doesn't matter from a rules point of view. They can vote for anybody at any time anyway, regardless of what Edwards did or say today or does in the future.
Original Update: Before we remove John Edwards' endorsements and numbers I wanted to add them to this post so we have a record of where things stood when he dropped out.
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