The Delegate Counts are Bass Ackwards

Here's how this is working...

Those CNN numbers are including only partial Super Tuesday results, only those states who have finished their delegate count completely. Bigger states, specifically CA (plus others) have not released official delegate counts yet and CNN is not yet including any from those states. CNN is also including super delegates in these numbers.

MSNBC's numbers are only including delegates won through primaries/caucuses. No super delegates are included in these numbers. Also, these numbers include full estimates of what happened on Super Tuesday, but are subject to change a little once official numbers come through.

Fox News is combining both full estimates (like MSNBC's numbers, although I believe they have slightly different estimates) plus all pledged super delegates (which are in the CNN numbers as well but not MSNBC's).

Is that clear? Yeah, it's a total mess.

I think MSNBC's are the best to look at right now. Yes some super delegates have already promised their votes to certain candidates, but technically they are free to change their mind up until the convention night. For that reason, it seems odd to me that news organizations are so eager to include them as if they are set in stone.

Good question. I mean to get those kind of numbers they're using estimates for Super Tuesday and adding in super delegates. Their estimates for Tuesday are obviously different, and some super delegates may have been pledged based on Tuesday's results that other sources are not counting yet.

Even MSNBC's numbers are odd though, as they're missing 9 delegates from Tuesday. 1681 were given out, their numbers equal 1672.

For now, everything is guess work. NM has yet to be called and is counting provisional ballots, as are other states. And CA is going to take days for official results to be solidified, and that's a good chunk of the delegates right there.

In general, what you want to keep in mind when you're looking at numbers is if they are going off of official results only, or using estimates for states not yet finalized and if are they including super delegates or not.

The bottom line is, among delegates given out by primaries and caucuses, Obama went into Tuesday having more, and by most accounts it looks like he came out having more.

But when you look at super delegates, Obama has 100-some pledged to him, while Clinton has 200-some pledged which is why she takes a huge leap forward whenever they're added in. But there are almost 800 super delegates in total, so most remain up for grabs.