The front page delegate counter indicates that the number of delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination is 2025. However, I am under the understanding that the number increased to 2026 with the election of Travis Childers to the House Seat in Mississippi. If this is correct, the DKos tracker should reflect this, no?
I have found several articles citing the fact that the change occurred, like this one:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/...
It's now going to take the support of at least 2,026 Democratic convention delegates to secure the party's presidential nomination -- one more than yesterday.
As the Associated Press notes, Tuesday's special election in Mississippi -- which will send Democrat Travis Childers to the House -- has increased by one the number of elected officials, party leaders and activists who make up the party's superdelegate ranks. So the current official number of delegates to the convention is 4,050. And that means the "magic number" to be the nominee, or 50% + 1 of the delegates, is 2,026.
And this one:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/...
With recent Congressional wins for the Democrats, the number of superdelegates has changed and it will now take 2,026 instead of 2,025 delegates to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August (details will be here eventually; at last check it still had the April numbers)
But, I cannot find an offical press release or anything from the party that announces the change. However, the LA Times article links the DNC website, where I did find this:
http://www.democrats.org/...
This is a link to a delegate allocation chart prepared by the DNC Office of Party Affairs and Delegate Selection, dated May 15, 2008. At the bottom it states that number of delegate votes needed for nomination (rounded) is 2026.
Most media outlets, including the paper of record, seem to be using the 2026 figure.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
After Tuesday night’s nominating contests, The Associated Press projected that Mr. Obama had 1,956 of the 2,026 pledged delegates and superdelegates needed to claim the nomination, compared to Mrs. Clinton’s 1,776 total delegates.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Sen. Barack Obama crossed another threshold last night in his march toward the Democratic presidential nomination, splitting a pair of primaries with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and claiming a majority of the pledged delegates at stake in the long nomination battle.
Obama scored an easy victory in Oregon after being trounced by Clinton in Kentucky. The results left him fewer than 100 delegates short of the 2,026 currently required to win the party's nomination in one of the closest contests that Democrats have staged in a generation.
http://thepage.time.com/...
Magic number: 2026
ABC: Obama 1,956, Clinton 1,766
MSNBC: Obama 1,954, Clinton 1,783
CNN: Obama 1,953, Clinton 1,770
CBS: Obama 1,953, Clinton 1,770
AP: Obama 1,956, Clinton 1,776
So, can we confirm that the correct number is 2026? It's nitpicking, but a) I had some time to kill today, and b) it gave me an excuse to recognize the delegate 'threshhold' that Obama 'crossed' yesterday.