WADR: Halperin Corrects Heilemann on Delegate Math History

April 21st, 2016 1:24 PM

Oops!

It was quite an amusing moment yesterday on Bloomberg's With All Due Respect when Mark Halperin corrected his co-host, John Heilemann, on delegate math history. As you can see in the video below, Heilemann asserted that Donald Trump was not doing as well as he should be because at this point in the 2012 Republican primary, Mitt Romney already had enough delegates to lock up the nomination. Halperin then interjected to point out that Romney did not have the nomination locked up until much  later than now. The funniest thing about this exchange was the sheepish reaction from Heilemann.

JOHN HEILEMANN: The bottom line is that Donald Trump goes to the convention with less than, fewer than 1237 delegates. If he comes in 10 delegates short, 100 delegates short. Any of those cases, he would be a historically very weak Republican nominee. Mitt Romney had the magic number by this point in the contest four years ago. 

MARK HALPERIN: No, no he didn't.

HEILEMANN: Really?

HALPERIN: No he didn't. He had about 100 more delegates than Trump. 

HEILEMANN: 100 more? So when did he actually lock up?

HALPERIN: Towards the end of the process. Normally you become the defacto nominee, everybody quits and gives up. Trump is not that far behind.

At this point the WADR bell rang causing this sheepish reaction by the freshly corrected Heilemann:

HEILEMANN: That bell rang way too early.

Or maybe you were saved by the bell, John.