Pledged delegate breakdown and endorsement flow, May 14th edition

It's endorsement season in the Democratic primary, and Barack Obama getting a big boost today with the endorsement of NARAL, the pro-choice advocacy group. NARAL's endorsement page suggests (and the AP confirms) that this is meant as a general election endorsement carried through because Clinton is believed to have no more chance of clinching the nomination; this is in some ways even worse for Hillary as it confirms that the Democratic universe is rallying around Obama with increasing speed in an effort to move beyond the primary.

Emily's List, however, is not happy with NARAL's decision with the group's president blasting NARAL: "I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton... to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process. It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them." In other womens' rights news, Obama has to answer questions about yet another comment with sexist connotations after having called a reporter "sweetie."

Meanwhile, rumors are flying that John Edwards could be hours away from endorsing Obama [Update: The rumors are getting stronger]. The Edwards couple did just do an interview in People magazine to make the point that they wouldn't endorse, but Edwards has said since then that he believes the race is over and that Obama is the nominee (yet again, so has James Carville). In more concrete endorsement news, 5 more superdelegates announced their support today (not that there is one more uncommitted superdelegate now with the election of Travis Childers in MS-01):

• As most days, Obama heavily outperformed Clinton, winning the support of Indiana Rep. Pete Vislosky, Oklahoma Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan, Democrats Abroad Chair Christine Schon Marques (she only gets 1/2 a vote) and College Democrats VP Awais Khaleel. The President of College Democrats also endorsed Obama but he is from Michigan so he does not get to vote.
  

• Clinton got one superdelegate endorsement, from the head of the Tennessee Federation of Democratic Women, Vicky Harwell.

That's 3.5 votes for Obama versus 1 for Clinton. The pool of superdelegates is narrowing daily and Clinton is falling further and further behind. The number of superdelegates who are justifying their endorsement by saying that the race is over makes it difficult, to say the least, to see how Clinton could suddenly get the near-unanimity of remaining superdelegates she needs. As for the pledged delegate count, it continues to look bleak for Clinton. Besides the numbers in West Virginia (see below), two other state breakdowns have changed since my last breakdown this past week-end.

First, Maryland, as a Clinton pledged delegate announced he would vote Obama (a first in this campaign), making the MD total 43-27. In Ohio, meanwhile, provisional ballots were done counting (6 weeks after) and Clinton's 10% victory is now down to a single-digit 9% win... which made her lose a pledged delegate, down to 74-67 from 75-66. And finally we now know the breakdown from:

West Virginia: Clinton 67%- 26% Obama

• Clinton: 20 delegates
  
• Obama: 8
  

This brings us to the following total of pledged delegates:

• Obama: 1601.5 delegates
  
• Clinton: 1443.5
• Remaining: 189

There is now a differential of 158 pledged delegates, with Clinton closing the margin by 8 since last week-end. I do not keep a running tab of superdelegates and the count depends on the media group. Obama appears to have somewhere around a 10 superdelegate lead presently, leaving Obama around 140 delegates to the new magic number of 2,026. Note that the Clinton campaign want to use a threshold that includes the delegate count of Michigan and Florida.