VT Insights: What did Bernie Sanders win in Democratic superdelegates rule change?

Aki Soga | Burlington Free Press

Bernie Sanders was all over the headlines this week over a controversy about the role of superdelegates in choosing the Democratic presidential nominee.

This was no replay of the 2016 primary, when the power of party insiders in choosing the nominee was a major source of friction between establishment Democrats backing Hillary Clinton and supporters of Sanders, Vermont's independent senator.

The Democratic National Committee over the weekend voted to reduce the power of superdelegates by only allowing pledged delegates to vote in the first round at the nominating convention.

Superdelegates are high elected officials such as members of Congress and governors, and other party insiders who are free to back any candidate they choose. Most delegates are bound to a specific candidate, chosen in a primary or a caucus.

Many headlines portrayed the change, which faced resistance from superdelegates themselves, as a victory for Sanders and his supporters.

Superdelegates Leahy, Shumlin, Dean backed Clinton in 2016

Sanders and others have long charged that superdelegates gave to party elites undue power to subvert the will of grassroots members of the party.

In Vermont, superdelegates including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; then-Gov. Peter Shumlin; former Gov. and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean; and party Committeewoman Billi Gosh faced a backlash for backing Clinton over Sanders, who overwhelmingly won the Vermont primary.

But eliminating the system would not have altered the outcome of the 2016 race.

Clinton won more of the popular vote than Sanders, and in just about every scenario that excludes superdelegates, Clinton still would have won the Democratic nomination.

Bottom line: Superdelegates did not cast the deciding votes in choosing the 2016 Democratic nominee for president.

Would superdelegate changes really help Sanders in 2020?

And the changes adopted by the DNC may not necessarily favor Sanders should he choose to run should he come to the convention with the most delegates but not a majority.

The people over at FiveThirtyEight dissect the new system at length and discuss the potential pitfalls. One of the takeaways by senior writer Perry Bacon Jr.:

"I actually think under the previous system, Warren (or Sanders) was guaranteed to win in a scenario where she (or he) had the most delegates. That is less true now. The previous system gave superdelegates lots of power in theory. But in practice, supers were already bending to the will of the voters."

And that brings us back to the central question surrounding Bernie Sanders that keeps him in the headlines -- will he or won't he run in 2020?

Related stories

Aki Soga is engagement editor for The Burlington Free Press. Email him at asoga@freepressmedia.com or chat with him on Twitter: @asoga