John Edwards to withdraw from race

John Edwards will pull out of the presidential primary according to the Associated Press.

He is expected to make the announcement at a speech addressing poverty in New Orleans at 1 p.m. EST today.

Edwards will not immediately endorse one of the remaining two candidates according to campaign sources, AP reports.

It's difficult to predict how Edwards' withdrawal will effect Super Tuesday outcomes. There is one argument that Edwards competed with Barack Obama for white men, especially in the South. Some believe that Edwards splits the "white vote" with Hillary Clinton.

Still another argument is that the progressive wing of the party is mostly split between Edwards and Obama. One bit of evidence for this is that polls conducted by progressive forums like MoveOn.org and DailyKos generally tend to feature these two candidates battling for the lead.

I tend to believe that at least from the standpoint of volunteers and grassroots efforts, Obama will benefit more as a larger number of progressive activists move toward his campaign in the coming days. The powerful SEIU union has tended to favor either Edwards or Obama in this race, so we might see this powerful organization shift toward the latter's camp.