Back in 2008, DCW published everything daily we could find on the Super Delegates. This year, it’s a little different since Hillary Clinton received many commitments prior to the voting beginning. It’s important to remember that “Super Delegate” is a media term, it refers to party regulars who are allowed a vote at the convention. The full list of 712 people include:

• President and Vice President (if they are Democrats)
• Democratic House and Senate members
• Democratic governors
• Former Democratic presidents and vice presidents
• Former Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate
• Former Democratic speakers of the House and Democratic minority leaders
• Former chairs of the Democratic National Committee
• Certain State Democratic leaders

The remaining 4,051 delegates are selected either through the caucus process, or directly elected via primaries. 2,382 delegate votes are required to turn a candidate into the party’s nominee. Already, over 400 delegates have committed to Hillary Clinton. It’s expected that today the Congressional Black Caucus will endorse her also. There is a split in the Progressive Caucus with most endorsing Clinton. Remember, though, as we at DCW learned in 2008, the pledges and endorsements can change over the course of the campaign.

So when you see numbers of delegates coming out of primaries and caucuses, they often include the number of Supers. For example, in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders won 15 delegates in the voting, Hillary won 9. However, she has six committed Super Delegates, and there are two uncommitted at this writing.

While a lot of people want the Supers to cede to the will of the people and go with the statewide votes (which will become a louder cry after the contests turn from proportional to winner-take-all) as there was in 2008, these are the rules of the party, and they are unlikely to change.