Holdouts ready to choose

{mosimage}Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign is urging uncommitted members of Congress to formally endorse the Democratic front-runner as voters in Montana and South Dakota head to the polls so that the Illinois senator can clinch the presidential nomination Tuesday night.

Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) said he was encouraged on Monday to back Obama now, and while the uncommitted freshman member will not support a candidate until later this week, he expects other lawmakers to endorse on Tuesday.

One such member is House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who said he will announce his endorsement at 11 a.m. Tuesday. Clyburn told the AP that he will endorse Obama.

In an interview with The Hill, Altmire said the Obama campaign believes it can reach the 2,118 delegates needed to clinch the nomination on Tuesday. The plan would be for superdelegates to formally endorse Obama while the polls are still open, and then later Tuesday, Obama would gather enough delegates to reach the magic number.

That strategy would ensure that voters and pledged delegates — and not an individual superdelegate — would put Obama over the top, helping to avoid the perception that party insiders ultimately decided the nominee.

{mosads}Obama is about 47 delegates away from reaching the clinching delegate number. If he does well, as expected in Montana and South Dakota, he will be fewer than 30 delegates away from the clinching number of 2,118.

There are 72 Democrats on Capitol Hill who have yet to endorse a candidate and roughly 200 uncommitted Democratic superdelegates in total.

Altmire said he personally promised Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) that he would not make an endorsement until after June 3 and will honor that commitment.

Clinton’s campaign has said it believes it can change the minds of superdelegates, but Altmire said he “can’t envision anyone” who would switch from Obama to Clinton at this point of the race.

Altmire said he has been in contact with other uncommitted superdelegates.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), meanwhile, called a few of the Senate’s remaining uncommitted superdelegates for a Monday afternoon meeting to discuss how each plan to roll out their endorsements in the coming days. The Obama and Clinton campaigns were not represented at Monday’s meeting, which took place outside of the Capitol.  Other than Harkin, Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) attended the meeting.

The Obama campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

In recent weeks, roughly three of every four Democrats on Capitol Hill have endorsed Obama. This endorsement trend comes as Clinton has won recent contests and made her case that she is more electable than the Illinois senator.

Asked last week whether there is any chance they will endorse soon, a handful of members suggested that a formal announcement is in the works.

Sue Walitsky, spokeswoman for Cardin, said the senator “is waiting for all the primaries to finish before he makes his decision.”

{mospagebreak}Nick Choate, press secretary for Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), said, “There is a chance. He will not endorse until the Michigan delegation [is] seated. After that, we will see.”

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) reached a decision on seating the Michigan delegation on Saturday.

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) “will make his decision after the last primary but before July 1,” according to Doyle spokesman Matt Dinkel.

{mosads}Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) will endorse within days of June 3, Kohl spokesman Rohit Mahajan said. Harkin, who endorsed Howard Dean early in the 2004 Democratic primary, is also waiting until after Tuesday. The senator’s wife, Ruth Harkin, has backed Clinton.    

Another senator poised to endorse is  Salazar. Stephanie Valencia, Salazar’s press secretary, said, “The senator has consistently said he will wait until after [June 3] when everybody has had a chance to have their voice heard.”

Tom Fazzini, deputy press secretary for Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said that “if the process fails to resolve itself, he will announce his position as a superdelegate by June 13.” Obama won Oregon easily last month.

The list of uncommitted Democrats ranges from the very powerful (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Calif.) to vulnerable members who are most concerned about their political lives this fall (Sen. Mary Landrieu, La.; and Reps. Nick Lampson of Texas and Tim Mahoney of Florida, among others).

Clinton suffered endorsement blows in May when Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) backed Obama after she won the state by 41 percentage points.

Both Reid and Pelosi have said they expect the race to be over in June, with Reid predicting that there will be a clear nominee by the end of this week.

If Clinton opts to appeal the DNC’s Saturday decision on delegates, Reid and Pelosi will face pointed questions about whether the former first lady should drop out.

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee’s decision on delegates infuriated the Clinton camp, but Pelosi praised it by congratulating the panel for its “good work.”

Pelosi’s home state of California has the most uncommitted lawmakers, with seven. Ohio has five, while Maryland, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania each have four.

Leadership members who have not endorsed, other than Reid and Pelosi, include Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Clyburn, Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.).

Manu Raju, J. Taylor Rushing and Sam Youngman contributed to this article.

Democrats who have not endorsed a presidential candidate (.PDF)