What Are Delegates & Superdelegates?

Now that Super Tuesday is over, what's next for the presidential candidates this election season? In the coming weeks, it's all about delegate math— how primary and caucus results are converted into delegates who actually pick a candidate at this summer's Republican and Democratic party conventions. And on the Democratic side, it's not just the delegates — there are also superdelegates to worry about.

Although states will continue to hold votes for the next few months, by March 15, a lot will be decided. It's traditionally a breaking point for low-ranking candidates to suspend their campaigns, since voters in a critical number of large states will have spoken. Here's how the delegate system really works, with breakdowns of how many delegates the candidates will need to win their parties' nominations.

What are delegates?

Delegates attend the Republican and Democratic national conventions on behalf of the candidates they're pledged to, based on the results of the caucuses and primaries that have taken place so far. For the 2016 presidential election, there are 2,472 Republican delegates at stake and 4,763 for the Democrats.

The way the two parties award their delegates is different: All of the Democratic delegates are awarded proportionally, rather than in a winner-take-all situation. But among Republicans, the process varies from state to state.

How many delegates does a candidate need to win?

To capture the Republican primary nomination, a candidate will need 1,237 delegates; on the Democratic side, the magic number is 2,382. Those figures represent the point at which a candidate has earned the votes of 50% of her or his party's delegates.

The Washington Post has an interactive list of where the 2016 candidates are in terms of delegates so far, and where they're projected to stand after March 15. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is expected to have 573 delegates by March 15; he currently has 285 delegates. Hillary Clinton is forecasted to have 1,009 delegates by then, and she had 544 as of March 2. The Post's projected estimates are based on the assumption that states will vote as they've been polling.

For Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, meanwhile, hope isn't lost. To stay on track, Cruz would need to win portions of the deep South, Midwest, and Texas, according to calculations by Five Thirty Eight. Rubio would need to win winner-take-all states on the West Coast and in the Mid-Atlantic.

What's a superdelegate?

The Democratic race differs from the Republican process in one major way: superdelegates. Of the 4,763 Democratic delegates, 712 — about 15% — are superdelegates. These are delegates who go into the Democratic convention unfettered to any specific candidate, unlike so-called pledged delegates. In other words, they're free agents — and they hold lots of power.

Superdelegates include elected officials, i.e. senators and members of the House of Representatives; certain members of the Democratic National Committee; and notable Democrats, such as current and former presidents and vice presidents, CBS News explains. They are, in many cases, literally elder statesmen and women who can be expected to represent their party's core values when pledging their votes. As of March 2, 451 of the Democratic superdelegates had expressed support for Hillary Clinton.

As the APnotes, Republicans do have superdelegates, but the process is less of a "wild card" situation. At the 2012 Republican national convention, the party implemented a rule that delegates must be awarded to candidates based on caucus and primary results. The rule affects most of the 168 RNC members who would previously have been free agents at the convention. But superdelegates from Colorado and North Dakota aren't pledged to any candidate, since those states don't actually hold votes in their Republican caucuses.

Who are the Democratic superdelegates this year?

President Obama and Vice President Biden, as well as former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, are superdelegates for the 2016 Democratic national convention, CBS News notes. Former Sen. Chris Dodd and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe are also superdelegates, since they're both former DNC chairs. Bernie Sanders himself is a superdelegate this year, since he's a Senator who attends Democratic caucuses, even though he's registered as an independent.

In close races, superdelegates can influence the nomination — they make up a significant portion of the Democratic delegates. There are still plenty of primaries and caucuses before the Democratic national convention, though, so it remains to be seen just how influential they'll be this year.



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