What will happen with John Edwards’ pledged delegates?

That’s the question on a lot of people’s minds this morning. Avi Zenilman at Ben Smith’s Politico blog has the answer:

Edwards still has 16 pledged delegates who have already been named — eight from South Carolina, four from New Hampshire, and four from Iowa. (He is projected to get an extra two or three more at the June 14 Iowa state convention.)

Pledged delegates aren’t bound to their vote, so they can now switch to Obama — as they will likely do, at Edwards’ urging.

But there’s also nothing keeping them from choosing Clinton. As of now, their situation is analogous to that of superdelegates.

[…]

Edwards Delegates, by state:

New Hampshire:

District Level Delegate: Joshua Denton, (Portsmouth)
District Level Delegate: Deborah Bacon-Nelson (Hanover)
Pledged Leader Elected Official: Senator Peter Hoe Burling (Cornish)
At-large Delegate: Representative Sharon Nordgren (Hanover)

South Carolina:

Robert Groce
Marilyn Hemingway
E Tim Moore
John Moylan
Lauren Bilton
Daniel Boan
Michael Evatt
Susan Smith

DemConWatch notes that Edwards won delegates in Florida, too:

Edwards also won 13 delegates in Florida, all at the CD level. (He won only 14.4% of the state-wide vote, so just fell short of getting any state-wide delegates – he would have picked up 9 or 10 delegates if he had hit 15%). Whether he keeps them depends on 1) whether the Florida delegates get seated at all, and 2) under what rules they get seated. That will have to wait for the RBC meeting at the end of the month.

The superfabulous FiveThirtyEight blog posts some possible delegate scenarios that include John Edwards’ delegates as well as the delegates from the remaining Dem primaries, and concludes: “Only a DEFCON 1 type of meltdown will prevent Obama from getting the nomination at this point.”

I heard Clinton’s campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe on the radio this morning saying, “We’re taking it all the way to the convention.”

Let’s hope so