2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Super delegates have worked for the Dems in the past. Why all of a sudden the move to get rid [View all]karynnj
(59,498 posts)that the winner of the popular vote would be the nominee. Nancy Pelosi led in withholding any endorsement - saying she would go with the national popular vote winner. Many joined her. In addition, the endorsements were not far from 50/50. With the Pelosi group as large as it became - even if those who endorsed stayed with their candidate (and prominent Obama ones including Kerry and Kennedy said that the superdelegates would not give the race to the loser.) - it was clear that the superdelegates would not put their thumb on the scale.
The reason it is happening now this year is that - for some reason - Clinton/media added her huge number of superdelegates. Imagine Sanders had been more viable and the numbers looked more like Clinton/Obama and there was a chance he could pull ahead at the end. Imagine too that the super delegates stay disproportionately with Clinton. Imagine he ended up with say 50 more pledged delegates than she did -- but she had 200 more superdelegates. Under the current rules -- she becomes the nominee.
That scenario - in the future (it did not happen this year) is the reason it is still spoken of.
(There also was the absolutely idiotic (in my opinion) idea that the superdelegates could swing the race to Sanders -- which was rather weird.)