According to Donna Brazille, if Obama gets 2026 before May 31st, then Obama will have won the nomination and the May 31st Rules Committee meeting will be cancelled because Obama has already reached the nominating goal. Brazille said and later confirmed this on CNN during Tuesday's West Virginia primary coverage.
Obama has received 11 new delegates today, 4 super-delegates and 7 former Edwards pledged delegates. Those 7 delegates could vote as they wish, effectively acting as superdelegates.
7 of 19 Edwards delegates have endorsed Obama today. They include South Carolina delegates Daniel Boan, Christine Brennan-Bond, Robert Groce, Susan Smith, Mike Evatt and Lauren Bilton and New Hampshire Delegate Joshua Denton.
In addition CWA President and Superdelegate Larry Cohen, Chairmen Henry Waxman and Howard Berman, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) have also endorsed Obama.
Obama has now gotten 45 new delegates since the NC and IN primaries, 34 of which occurred in the 7 days after the primaries and before the Edwards endorsement. 3 of those SDs switched from Clinton. Clinton herself has gotten 5 new Super-delegates in the same time.
Obama is 129.5 delegates away from clinching the nomination. It is likely that Obama will get about 52 new pledged delegates next week from Kentucky and Oregon. That would leave him needing about 77.5 delegates to get to 2026.
According to Donna Brazille, if Obama gets 2026 before May 31st, then Obama will have won the nomination and the May 31st Rules Committee meeting will be cancelled because Obama has already reached the nominating goal. The purpose of the meeting scheduled on the 31st is to resolve a crucial issue. If Obama gets 2026 then the meeting is no longer crucial. I don't know when the meeting would be rescheduled, but it would no longer need to be resolved early.
Obama has been getting about 5 SD/day. At that rate with Edwards 19 and with Oregon and Kentucky, he would get past 2026 in 12 days, May 27th.
If Obama doesn't make 2026 by then, he is likely to garner at least 40 more pledged delegates from the remaining primaries, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota. That would surely get him over the 2026 mark, however by then, the rules committee meeting may change the nominating number.