Awais Khaleel is a UW-Madison senior, and he is also one of a few Wisconsin superdelegates"" who could determine the Democratic nominee for President.
""Superdelegates,"" unlike the majority of the 92 Democrat delegates in the Wisconsin primary, can vote any way they want.
The 16 ""superdelegates"" include Gov. Jim Doyle, U.S. Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, D-Wis., members of Congress from Wisconsin and several Democratic National Committee members.
Khaleel, like Marquette University student Jason Rae, are DNC members. Khaleel said he had been in contact with the Democratic campaigns for months, but said he had not been heavily pressured to endorse a specific candidate.
He said when he talked Monday with Chelsea Clinton, daughter of candidate U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., the issue of endorsing someone was never mentioned.
Khaleel said he is more interested in helping to increase youth voter turnout than endorsing anyone yet. He said the two Democratic campaigns were both doing an impressive job trying to increase young voter participation.
""What we're seeing with both the Clinton and the Obama campaigns is an unprecedented amount of effort reaching out to young people,"" Khaleel said.
Speculation that ""superdelegates"" would decide the election, according to Khaleel, is a little premature. He said the large state primaries in Ohio and Texas would likely determine a nominee.
""I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I wouldn't bet on 'superdelegates' being a deciding factor [in the nomination],"" Khaleel said.
Several ""superdelegates"" have already endorsed candidates. Doyle, along with U.S. Reps. Dave Obey and Gwen Moore, D-Wis., have endorsed U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., has endorsed Clinton, as has DNC member Tim Sullivan, according to the Associated Press.
In total, there are 796 ""superdelegates"" that will vote at the national convention in Denver.
According to the AP and CNN, along with other news outlets that differ in the delegate totals for each candidate, Clinton and Obama are currently within 10-100 delegates of one another.
To earn the nomination, 2,025 delegates are needed.
