Superdelegate Roundup

I've created a spreadsheet to keep track of how superdelegates have pledged themselves coupled with the popular vote in their state or Congressional District. I hope this will help to gauge the impact that superdelegates have on the nomination. If superdelegates voted along with the general population, we would expect them to be evenly split between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. However, the current estimates indicate that Senator Clinton has between 80 and 95 more superdelegates than Senator Obama.

I took my list of superdelegates from Democratic Convention Watch. This site lists all the superdelegates and keeps track of which ones have publicly committed to vote for one of the candidates. For each delegate, I indicated how their state voted, if their state has held a caucus or primary. For superdelegates who are US Representatives, I indicated how their Congressional District voted, if such data was available.

I took my state level results from the New York Times. Most of the Congressional District results came from USA Today, although my data for Nevada came from here, while my data for New Jersey came from here. I was unable to get data for Washington Congressional Districts because they are not done counting yet. I also do not have data for Maine, and statewide results in New Mexico are still undetermined. These states and others will be added as data becomes available. I did not include superdelegates from Florida and Michigan in my totals since these delegates are not currently allowed to vote for a nominee.

Here are the totals:

There are a total of 198 superdelegates in states or Congressional Districts which voted for Senator Clinton. Of these 97 (49%) have committed to voting for Senator Clinton, 23 (11.6%) have committed to voting for Senator Obama and 78 (39.4%) are uncommitted.

There are a total of 211 superdelegates in states or Congressional Districts which voted for Senator Obama. Of these, 71 (33.6%) have committed to voting for Senator Obama, 47 (22.3%) have committed to voting for Senator Clinton and 93 (44.1%) are uncommitted.

There are a total of 312 superdelegates in states which have not yet held a caucus or primary, or whose caucus or primary has not yet provided results. Of these, 78 (25%) have committed to voting to Senator Clinton, 37 (11.9%) have committed to voting for Senator Obama and 197 (63.1%) are uncommitted.

It appears that Senator Clinton is achieving her superdelegate edge in all possible places; she has convinced a greater percentage of delegates in her areas to commit to her rather than remain uncommitted, she has convinced a greater percentage of delegates in Senator Obama's areas to commit to her rather than follow the will of the voters, and she has convinced a greater percentage of superdelegates from areas which have not held votes to commit to her. It will be interesting to see how these numbers change as we get closer to the convention.