There’s a meme going around highlighting the fact that Hillary Clinton actually walked away with more delegates from New Hampshire than Bernie Sanders despite her landslide loss. The reason for this relates to the fact that she already has hundreds of pledged “super delegates,” several of whom hail from NH.
For example, the Daily Caller is reporting the following:
Though Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary in a landslide over Hillary Clinton, he will likely receive fewer delegates than she will.
Sanders won 60 percent of the vote, but thanks to the Democratic Party’s nominating system, he leaves the Granite State with at least 13 delegates while she leaves with at least 15 delegates.
New Hampshire has 24 “pledged” delegates, which are allotted based on the popular vote. Sanders has 13, and Clinton has 9, with 2 currently allotted to neither.
But under Democratic National Committee rules, New Hampshire also has 8 “superdelegates,” party officials who are free to commit to whomever they like, regardless of how their state votes. Their votes count the same as delegates won through the primary.
New Hampshire has 8 superdelegates, 6 of which are committed to Hillary Clinton, giving her a total of 15 delegates from New Hampshire as of Wednesday at 9 a.m.
Technically this is true, but while the super delegates are “pledged,” they aren’t actually awarded until the Democratic convention in July. So while at 15% of total delegates, the super delegates could potentially decide who is the nominee is, would they actually go against the popular vote at the convention?
I read a great article by Shane Ryan at Paste Magazine analyzing this entire process, which does an excellent job of explaining why everyone should stop talking about total delegates and focus on the individual primaries. Here are a few excerpts from the piece:
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