title:  Fact: Superdelegates Have Never Determined The Democratic Nominee
text: As the Democratic Primary heats up heading into yet another  Super Tuesday   where Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware and Connecticut will decide who to support for the 2016 presidential election, questions (and hostilities) are flaring up yet again over the designation of superdelegates.Questions remain whether or not Hillary Clinton will be able to amass the 2,383 delegates needed to secure a nomination without the support of superdelegates. Clinton s campaign says they are not worried about falling short, but Jane Sanders, wife of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, thinks otherwise. However, after a crushing blow in New York, team Sanders has had to come up with a new strategy if they hope to win the nomination   that strategy, according to reports, is to persuade superdelegates to back him, a move the Clinton campaign has cried foul on.But in all, it really doesn t matter one way or another. What many people may not know is the superdelegate system, since its introduction in the 1984 election, has never determined who the Democratic nominee is.That s right. Superdelegates have never been responsible for putting Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry or Barack Obama on the national stage for the general election. In 2008, the primary showdown between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was even closer than it is now, and still superdelegates weren t responsible for Obama s win.While appearing on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, head of the DNC and a congresswoman from Florida, reminded audiences of this crucial fact, as hostility intensifies within the party.Politifact decided to fact check this claim, using information and second opinions from a multitude of political scientists, and concluded that Wasserman Schultz is right (with one little detail left out), and gave the rating as  Mostly True,  writing:The first election where Democrats used superdelegates was in 1984, where they helped Mondale secure the nomination on the first ballot at the convention. It s not clear that they were the  determining  factor. Some say Mondale would have won without them.Since that time, a Democrat has won the nomination early enough where the superdelegates haven t mattered.What that means is the elections between two candidates (or more) in the Democratic primary have never been so close that superdelegates were needed to break the  tie  or push one candidate over the edge to victory. By the time the conventions have rolled around, it s been clear who the people (and pledged delegates) have picked.Only Mondale got help with superdelegates, but sources differ on whether they determined his win.Essentially, the superdelegates have been a symbolic vote by those within the Democratic ranks as to see which direction they want the party to head in. But why should we have them, then? According to the Wasserman Schultz, their purpose is to make sure that party activists who want to be delegates to the convention don t have to run against much better-known and well-established people at the district level. So whether or not you love them or hate them, just remember they have never been responsible for nominating the candidate you love or hate. Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images