I’m confused.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/scorecard/index.html
How can delegates delegate their delegate votes before their delegating primary?
Most delegates to the Democratic convention are picked in state primaries or caucuses, but the Democrats also have what are known as “Superdelegates”. These are Democratic Party leaders (members of the DNC, democratic congressmen, former presidents, etc), who, unlike the delegates picked in primaries and caucuses, who are pledged to a certain candidate, can vote for whoever they want. I’d imagine that chart shows the superdelegates who have endorsed (and will therefore, likely vote for) that candidate.
I think the difference is the super-delegates. More than 80% of the delegates are chosen by Democratic voters in state primaries and caucuses. But since the mid-1980s, there are also several hundred super-delegates, mostly elected officials like governors, congressmen, and senators. These super-delegates are free to offer their support to any candidate at any time. I believe that they are free to change their affiliation at any time. It looks like somewhere around 100 of about 800 super-delegates have made their choice, which currently overwhelms the delegates chosen by the voters in two small states. As we get more primaries completed, the relative insignificance of super-delegates will become more obvious.
Without regard to candidates, here’s a pdf file(may take a while to load), showing the state by state delegate breakdown:
http://www.democrats.org/pdfs/delegate_selection/delegate_allocation.pdf
The various unpledged collumns are the 802 super delegates.
I’m unclear about the distinction between pledged and unpledged delegates. In addition the the scorecard linked to by Munch there is also an Unpledged Delegate Scorecard which associates unpledged delegates with specific candidates. I would have thought that “unpledged” meant that they hadn’t chosen a candidate yet.