the texas democratic party sent a total of 228 delegates to the 2008 democratic national convention. of those delegates, 193 were pledged and 35 were unpledged. most of the 193 pledged delegates were allocated at the national convention according to the results of the texas presidential primary on march 4. the 35 unpledged delegates were popularly called "superdelegates" because their votes represented their personal decisions, whereas the regular delegates' votes represented the collective decision of many voters. superdelegates were free to vote for any candidate at the national convention and were selected by the texas democratic party's officials.