To win the nomination without Supers would require a candidate to average 59% - 41%

[Godhumor]

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]

1. We should change that.

Superdelegates are undemocratic and impractical.

[Godhumor]

4. Like i said, it depends on how you think of the system

But, yes, it is interesting that 50%+1 pledged delegate does not technically win you the nomination.

[yeoman6987]

5. I think they could be used but only at the convention

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]

8. I don't see them serving any useful purpose at all.

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]

10. I agree. I just think it was very unfair for Hillary to have 500 or whatever number

At the starting line. It is practically impossible to beat someone with a 20 percent advantage first day.

[LoverOfLiberty]

11. Their usefulness would be quite evident

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]

15. That argument doesn't convince me.

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. And I believe I saw someone say that if there were no Supers, Hillary would have clinched by now.

[Godhumor]

3. Depends on the system used and how delegates are allocated n/t

[jcgoldie]

9. not quite

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]

6. So far history has shown that they side with the majority of pledged delegates.

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]

7. If we had winner take all like the Repubs the race would be over now.

[Demsrule86]

12. Obama needed supers

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]

13. That has to be changed...

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]

14. Before KY, Hillary had a comparatively bigger lead than Trump...but what about the DNC system?

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

After the 1968 Democratic National Convention, at which pro-Vietnam war liberal Hubert Humphrey was nominated for the presidency despite not running in a single primary election, the Democratic Party made changes in its delegate selection process to correct what was seen as "illusory" control of the nomination process by primary voters.[7] A commission headed by South Dakota Senator George McGovern and Minnesota Representative Donald M. Fraser met in 1969 and 1970 to make the composition of the Democratic Party's nominating convention less subject to control by party leaders and more responsive to the votes cast in primary elections.

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&quot .[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]