Howard Dean and many of his supporters are looking at the up-to-date delegate count and arguing that it is Dean, and not Kerry, leading the race for the nomination.
Yesterday, for example, Dean was on Meet the Press addressing the long-term approach to his campaign. He said, “[T]his race is about delegates. As we sit here right now, I have more delegates than John Kerry does.”
A lot of people would be forgiven for being confused. Dean came in a distant third in Iowa and lost by double digits in New Hampshire. As such, there’s no possible way Dean could be in the lead, right?
Depending on who you ask, here’s the delegate count for the major Dem candidates as of today:
Dean — 114
Kerry — 98
Edwards — 39
Clark — 30
Lieberman — 25
(CNN has the tally looking slightly different, so take them both with a grain of salt.)
Obviously, this is going to change dramatically tomorrow after seven states host primaries, but these totals make it look like Dean is leading the race. In this case, however, the appearance is misleading.
This can get a little complicated, but the difference comes down to delegates candidates win via caucuses and primaries vs. support candidates earn from “superdelegates.”
If you consider just the delegates awarded from Iowa and New Hampshire, Kerry leads with 30 delegates, Dean is in second with 16, and Edwards is right behind him with 15. Dean’s “lead” in the overall totals, however, comes from support Dean’s received in the form of endorsements from party officials, members of Congress, and state lawmakers who are called superdelegates.
As a result, 98 of Dean’s 114 delegates (or 86%) come from these superdelegates, not delegates he’s picked up by performing well in the primaries.
So, what’s wrong with that? Actually, quite a bit. Support from a superdelegate is tenuous at best. Unlike delegates from the primary process, superdelegates can shift their support from one candidate to another at any time. If Kerry (or any other candidate for that matter) starts to assume the role of presumptive nominee, many, if not most, of Dean’s superdelegates, who singed on when Dean was the frontrunner, will just move over to Kerry’s camp.
In other words, these totals are artificially inflated by unbound endorsements from politicians who can change their mind at any time. The number to keep your eye on is the actual delegate total garnered from performance in the state-by-state primary process.