What would a Rubio electoral map have looked like?

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Let's dispel the notion that rubio has broad appeal amongst hispanics. He lost hispanics overall in his home state to a candidate the dems abandoned (murphy) in a senate race. Over two-thirds of non-cuban latinos voted for Murphy. So taking that into account, NV is gone. VA is not going for a social conservative, if there was one state consistently showing Clinton winning easily it was VA. By the way, ME-2 is basically 'working class white' Lepage land, so if you subtract boosed totals amongst working class whites, you can subtract that too. OH would still be a toss-up, it's full of non-college educated whites, the same kind that majorly flipped to Trump.

Let's not forget FL, in his home state of notoriety, he was constantly tied in the polls v. Clinton.

Combine that with no russian released hacks depressing Dem turnout, it comes down to OH/CO/FL in a tight race with a Hillary had an electoral advantage, not that different from a race with Jeb.

*The only reason MN is ever close is due to turnout issues, which wouldn't have happened to the extent that it did without the hacks.

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Let's dispel the notion that rubio has broad appeal amongst hispanics. He lost hispanics overall in his home state to a candidate the dems abandoned (murphy) in a senate race. Over two-thirds of non-cuban latinos voted for Murphy. So taking that into account, NV is gone. VA is not going for a social conservative, if there was one state consistently showing Clinton winning easily it was VA. By the way, ME-2 is basically 'working class white' Lepage land, so if you subtract boosed totals amongst working class whites, you can subtract that too. OH would still be a toss-up, it's full of non-college educated whites, the same kind that majorly flipped to Trump.

Let's not forget FL, in his home state of notoriety, he was constantly tied in the polls v. Clinton.

Combine that with no russian released hacks depressing Dem turnout, it comes down to OH/CO/FL in a tight race with a Hillary had an electoral advantage, not that different from a race with Jeb.

*The only reason MN is ever close is due to turnout issues, which wouldn't have happened to the extent that it did without the hacks.

Laughable if you think the DNC hacks is the reason Hillary lost. She was a terrible candidate with no compelling message, running on an ultra-liberal democratic platform that the voters did not want.

The hacks hurt dem turnout at the margins. Without that, Dem turnout is boosted and she holds the blue wall fine. Her problem is that the base thought she was too right-wing, same with Gore. On the other hand, rubio was running on a canned message his handlers ordered to him on a Bush-era PNAC slogan that voters did not want.

By the way, you still haven't explained why if rubio is so appealing to hispanics, why he lost over two-thirds of non-cuban hispanics and lost hispanics overall against a weak candidate the dems abandoned in his senate race.

Hillary was polling better in OH and a number of swing states than Obama was v. Mccain in '08 (until lehman), she is about equal to Obama.

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I agree with this map. I would probably have flipped Michigan to Rubio.

If Rubio won the nomination and made the rumors true by selecting Nikki Haley as his running mate, he probably would have won more rural voters as Trump did. It would also had boosted him among African-American voters since Haley removed the Confederate flag from South Carolina's Capitol Hill after the shooting in Charleston in 2015, which would have made Rubio competitive in Detroit, thus helping him winning Michigan.

Keep in mind that UWS is is the same poster who thinks that Haley would cause the ticket to win Washington state due to the 'asian vote'. He still hasn't explained how rubio could not even win the hispanic vote in his own home state in a senate race against an abandoned dem opponent.

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Despite historic turnout and support from working-class whites, Trump's margin in MI, WI, PA were pretty thin (below 1% and just 1.2% in FL). This is because he underperformed with college whites. Rubio would have done better than even Romney with this group. The fact that Trump beat Hillary by just 9% in Texas, 3.6% in Arizona, and 5.1% in Georgia, is indicative of Trump's weakness with college whites in suburbs.

Rubio was polling in a statistical tie v. Clinton in the first place in FL.

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By the way, one more comment, many of the people on here hyping rubio will say that Bernie had zero chance, despite Bernie polling better in hypothetical polls than every republican. You can't have it both ways.

Either accept that people didn't know much about the candidates in the first place, and thus their numbers and favorables were inflated (cruz originally polled within the margin of error w/ rubio, only collapsed in apr/may), or accept that Bernie would've beaten all the republicans going by the logic of hypothetical polling matchups.

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I agree with this map. I would probably have flipped Michigan to Rubio.

If Rubio won the nomination and made the rumors true by selecting Nikki Haley as his running mate, he probably would have won more rural voters as Trump did. It would also had boosted him among African-American voters since Haley removed the Confederate flag from South Carolina's Capitol Hill after the shooting in Charleston in 2015, which would have made Rubio competitive in Detroit, thus helping him winning Michigan.

Keep in mind that UWS is is the same poster who thinks that Haley would cause the ticket to win Washington state due to the 'asian vote'. He still hasn't explained how rubio could not even win the hispanic vote in his own home state in a senate race against an abandoned dem opponent.

And yet it was tied : Rubio got 48 % of the Latino vote, that's high enough to win Florida.

And 48 % of the Hispanic vote in Florida is clearly better than Mitt Romney's record in 2012 when he got only 39 % of the Latino vote and lost Florida to Barack Obama by less than one point of percentage.

Yes, FL, a heavily cuban state, which means being cuban wouldn't help or prevent him from losing NV, etc. Romney did worse with working class whites, which is what cost him.

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FBM does a lot better than T***p in Atlas-red States, as well as in big States like FL and TX, hence the narrower EV win despite a nearly 5-point popular vote lead.

rubio was always polling as tied to Hillary in FL.

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Clinton/Kaine (D) 279 EV
Rubio/Kasich (R) 269 EV

Rubio is nerdy and smarmy.  At no time did Rubio come off as anything other than the Estabishment's Favorite Management Trainee.  He had no experience, yet he was still very much viewed as an insider.  And rightly so; there is nothing "outsider" about Marco Rubio's career, which has, at every step, been advanced by powerful insiders.

Wait, how did you get those numbers 279-269?  That would mean both candidates could hit 270?

He meant 279-259

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Anyone besides Trump was destined to lose because of how smarmy and obviously socially far-right they were to the point where Hillary would actually be more likable.

Clinton/Kaine: 340 EV, 54% PV
Rubio/Kasich: 198 EV, 44% PV

Only Trump Don't Get Stumped.

This is obviously an exaggeration, but you can look at the scenario FB described couple of posts ago. No russian hacks are enough to have generated enough dem support to have saved the blue wall, combined with Cortez-Masto and Bennet giving Hillary help in CO and NV, + with VA, that would be enough to have caused a reverse 2000 type scenario against a Jeb/Rubio, where the dems win electorally, even if the popular vote is closer.

Besides that as another poster pointed out, maybe Kasich was the only other candidate with unique regional appeal.

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FBM does a lot better than T***p in Atlas-red States, as well as in big States like FL and TX, hence the narrower EV win despite a nearly 5-point popular vote lead.

rubio was always polling as tied to Hillary in FL.

Sure, and she was also crushing T***p in those same polls.

Not necessarily, this is an example of a poll that had Trump winning the state, with Cruz/Rubio losing it, not saying it's representative of all polls, just saying that the notion that all Trump voters would've automatically gone to another candidate is a flawed assumption:

http://www.mynews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2016/3/7/exclusive_political__0.html#results

It's like how people kept saying that all of Jeb's voters would go to a non-Trump candidate in the primary, yet Trump ended up getting many of Jeb's voters too.

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Let's dispel the notion that rubio has broad appeal amongst hispanics. He lost hispanics overall in his home state to a candidate the dems abandoned (murphy) in a senate race. Over two-thirds of non-cuban latinos voted for Murphy.

He had broad appeal compared to Trump, who he overperformed significantly among Hispanics, including non-Cubans. Look at Orange County, Florida, which has a very high Puerto Rican population -- Rubio got 42% there to Trump's 35%.

"Broad appeal" is kind of loaded terminology -- Rubio would've obviously lost non-Cuban Hispanics. But he would've done significantly better with them than Trump did.

So taking that into account, NV is gone. VA is not going for a social conservative, if there was one state consistently showing Clinton winning easily it was VA. By the way, ME-2 is basically 'working class white' Lepage land, so if you subtract boosed totals amongst working class whites, you can subtract that too. OH would still be a toss-up, it's full of non-college educated whites, the same kind that majorly flipped to Trump.

Let's not forget FL, in his home state of notoriety, he was constantly tied in the polls v. Clinton.

Let's go through these one by one. I ~more or less~ agree on NV, though I don't think it's Hispanic turnout so much as that the Democratic machine and distaste with the Republican-controlled state legislature in 2016 meant that no Republican was carrying it. As for VA, it's voted for plenty of social conservatives -- hell, Cuccinelli came within 2% when he was massively outspent right after the government shutdown; Rubio could've carried Loudoun County, even by a lot less than Comstock did, otherwise improved in NoVa, and carried the state, even though he would've run behind Trump's totals in Griffith's district.

Working-class, formerly Democratic-voting whites did trend towards Trump. But they also trended towards Republican candidates across the board in 2014, who were typically much more standard, non-Trumpy Republicans. Considering that ME-2 went for Trump by 11 points, I tend to think a standard Republican would've at least come close, though he may not have won it. As for OH, the working-class trend towards the Republicans there predates Trump. It would've voted for any Republican nominee, though I concede that Rubio would've run behind Trump's numbers.

Yes, Rubio was tied in the polls against Clinton in Florida. But Trump was consistently behind. Polls underestimated Republicans across the board. Rubio would've won.

Combine that with no russian released hacks depressing Dem turnout, it comes down to OH/CO/FL in a tight race with a Hillary had an electoral advantage, not that different from a race with Jeb.

Ohio and Florida would both have been tilt-Republican states. The election would've come down to Colorado, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

*The only reason MN is ever close is due to turnout issues, which wouldn't have happened to the extent that it did without the hacks.

Yeah, the magnitude of the WWC trend in Minnesota towards Trump would not have happened with a Rubio nomination, and even with that Trump lost the state. Minnesota would not have been particularly close. Neither would Michigan have been.

The margin as you said with NV wouldn't have been enough to make a difference. Mid-term elections are different due to turnout issues. VA was consistently Hillary's strongest polling state.

CO is demographically very similar to NV, Hillary would keep it for the same reasons.

That's because the type of strategy Hillary engaged with republican courtship was specifically detrimental to the downballot, and this was something warned against by the DNC.

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/137093/clinton-campaign-decision-made-may-doom-down-ballot-democrats

The democrats would've campaigned differently. As for VA, rubio did not perform well with R leaners at all in VA, the only reason he came close in the primary was due to hillary voters in NoVA confident that bernie was going to lose the VA primary going for him to 'stop trump'. It's similar to the democrats who voted for Santorum in the MI primary in 2012 to cause damage to Romney. This was a well-documented phenomenon at the time.

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The margin as you said with NV wouldn't have been enough to make a difference. Mid-term elections are different due to turnout issues. VA was consistently Hillary's strongest polling state.

CO is demographically very similar to NV, Hillary would keep it for the same reasons.

CO really isn't demographically similar to NV. CO is a much younger state and a much wealthier state. CO has a lot of suburban Republicans who left the party to vote Hillary or Johnson (who broke 5% here; those voters would've broken quite strongly Rubio had Trump not been the nominee), who would've stuck with Rubio had he been the candidate; also, Trump's improvement in the state was among rural, culturally conservative Hispanics who'd gotten fed up with the Democratic Party; unlike most other groups Trump improved with, Rubio would've been stronger, not weaker here.

I don't know if it adds up to a win for Rubio, or a very narrow loss. But he would've been much stronger than Trump in Colorado, whereas about the same in Nevada (though with a slightly different coalition there).

That's because the type of strategy Hillary engaged with republican courtship was specifically detrimental to the downballot, and this was something warned against by the DNC.

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/137093/clinton-campaign-decision-made-may-doom-down-ballot-democrats

The democrats would've campaigned differently. As for VA, rubio did not perform well with R leaners at all in VA, the only reason he came close in the primary was due to hillary voters in NoVA confident that bernie was going to lose the VA primary going for him to 'stop trump'. It's similar to the democrats who voted for Santorum in the MI primary in 2012 to cause damage to Romney. This was a well-documented phenomenon at the time.

Primary performances don't correlate to the general. Trump bombed in the Iowa caucus and the Ohio primary, but won the Virginia primary. He massively improved over Romney in the general elections in Iowa and Ohio while cratering in Virginia. Rubio could've won in Virginia by holding Gillespie numbers in most of the state and improving slightly in Appalachia; even running a few percentage points behind Trump, but ahead of Gillespie there, would've been fine.

Dickenson County: Gillespie 56%, Trump 77%
Buchanan County: Gillespie 60%, Trump 79%

Rubio does not need to reach those heights in the 70s to carry Virginia if he wins Loudoun County (and generally hits Gillespie numbers in NoVa), as Gillespie narrowly did and as Trump utterly failed to do. The reason Gillespie was so weak in Appalachia was because of a favorite son effect for Warner, who was originally from there and in fact carried the area in most of his first races (in 1996, when Warner ran for the Senate for the first time, he lost 52/47 but broke 60% in both Dickenson and Buchanan Counties).

All of this is perfectly doable for a non-Trump Republican running in a tilt-Republican year, which Rubio was.

I agree that the strategy Hillary used was detrimental to the downballot. I'm assuming that Hillary would've used a different, more typical, more similar to Obama-'12 strategy against a more typical Republican, like Rubio, and would not have hit the heights she did hit in the suburbs.

CO is a very different state than it used to be. The governor got re-elected after passing gun control measures. VA is also very different, they were states heavily impacted by transplants (also NV). Many dem transplants in these states are educated and wealthy and they quite literally have no other reasons for voting besides social issues, so the economic argument doesn't work well with them.

Trump's issues in iowa were due to ground game, Iowa was a caucus, remember. In Ohio, he was up against a well-liked Governor.

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CO is a very different state than it used to be. The governor got re-elected after passing gun control measures. VA is also very different, they were states heavily impacted by transplants (also NV). Many dem transplants in these states are educated and wealthy and they quite literally have no other reasons for voting besides social issues, so the economic argument doesn't work well with them.

Sure, but the Republican candidate for Governor in Colorado in 2014 ran a very weak campaign. Republicans picked up the Senate seat there that year in a very nationalized race, and only failed to pick up the Senate seat in Virginia because of Warner's overperformance in Appalachia, hitting numbers no presidential Democratic nominee would be able to hit. The states have not changed that much between 2014 and 2016. Both were winnable in 2016 for a standard Republican. (There were states that weren't -- I suspect that only a Trump-style campaign, or a candidate very strong in the Rust Belt generally, could've won Michigan or Pennsylvania, and Rubio certainly wasn't cutting it for either state).

Trump's issues in iowa were due to ground game, Iowa was a caucus, remember. In Ohio, he was up against a well-liked Governor.

That explains part of the underperformance, but it doesn't explain all of it. Trump was weak in the rural Midwest before his mid-April surge. He just was. In the Illinois primary, Illinois minus Chicagoland voted for Cruz; Cruz lost the state because he wasn't able to do better than third in the suburban counties, where Trump and Kasich both ran far ahead of him. In Ohio, he was up against a popular Governor; in Wisconsin, he wasn't. In Michigan -- site of his most stunning general-election victory -- he won barely more than a third of the vote and only won a plurality because his opponents in the state were focusing their fire on each other.

Prior to the mid-April surge, four Midwestern states had primaries -- Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio. And Trump's performance in all states varied very little, always 35-39%. What did vary was how united, or not, his opponents were.

Notwithstanding this fact -- Trump improved massively in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio over previous Republicans (and also improved massively in Illinois minus Chicagoland). Primary results don't correlate with the general election. They just don't. They can't be used to project one or the other.

The way for republicans to improve in those states in VA and CO is to win more wealthy, college educated voters than romney, which is unlikely, because again, their whole purpose for voting democratic is due to social issues. 2014 was supposed to be a wave election year. Even if your theory is that they were tilting R this year due to cyclical reasons, putting up someone even more socially conservative than romney would offset those numbers and alienate them. Maybe someone like Kasich would've been closer.

Trump got railroaded by the WI media market in the primary.

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The way for republicans to improve in those states in VA and CO is to win more wealthy, college educated voters than romney, which is unlikely, because again, their whole purpose for voting democratic is due to social issues. 2014 was supposed to be a wave election year. Even if your theory is that they were tilting R this year due to cyclical reasons, putting up someone even more socially conservative than romney would offset those numbers and alienate them. Maybe someone like Kasich would've been closer.

Trump got railroaded by the WI media market in the primary.

Their purpose for voting Democratic is social issues, but the correct sort of campaign, like the one waged by Cory Gardner (who, for the record, is much more socially conservative than Marco Rubio) is perfectly capable of getting them to switch. Donald Trump turned voters (wealthy social liberals; this doesn't apply to poorer secular voters in places like New England) like that off much more than other Republicans would've; certainly, much worse than Rubio. Rubio would only have needed a few percentage points improvement, also.

"Cyclical reasons" aren't part of the theory. I'm just looking at the national mood and the demographics. Cyclical reasons are bunk; American politics doesn't run on cycles. 2014 wasn't really a Republican wave, incidentally, just a tilt-Republican year that happened to be 6 years after a ludicrous Democratic landslide, so the Republican victory in 2014 looked exaggerated. 2010 was the wave. The two Senate elections held since 2012 -- 2014 and 2016 -- have both seen the vast majority of races, with only a few exceptions (KS/ME/AK 2014, MO 2016 being the very obvious ones) reduced to a proxy for presidential preference. My thesis is that Rubio v. Clinton would've been very, very similar to the 2014 Senate elections, since Rubio and Clinton are essentially Generic R and Generic D from that era. Trump changed the game.

Nah, the Wisconsin media didn't really damage Trump at all. They railroaded Kasich, by successfully building Cruz up as the only alternative to Trump. Had they not been able to do that, Cruz and Kasich would've split the vote and probably allowed to Trump to win the state. But they didn't actually convince anyone to vote for or against Trump who wouldn't have already done it anyway.

About Gardner's social positions? Are you sure that just wasn't Udall exaggerating them in propaganda?

You talk about the libertarian vote in the state, but Johnson's support in the polls split pretty evenly between the 2 candidates. rubio's harsh support for federal drug laws would hurt him there in a state where a libertarian like GJ would do so well.

The media attacks there capped Trump's momentum. It wasn't a normal state for media.

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About Gardner's social positions? Are you sure that just wasn't Udall exaggerating them in propaganda?

You talk about the libertarian vote in the state, but Johnson's support in the polls split pretty evenly between the 2 candidates. rubio's harsh support for federal drug laws would hurt him there in a state where a libertarian like GJ would do so well.

The media attacks there capped Trump's momentum. It wasn't a normal state for media.

Nah, Gardner really did have a very socially conservative record. He was a co-sponsor of the federal Life Begins At Conception Act and in the Colorado House introduced legislation to keep Medicare from paying for birth control. When Udall attacked him on it, it backfired.

Johnson's support would've broken evenly between Clinton and Trump. Considering the correlation that existed in most states between swing to Clinton and Johnson support, it seems pretty clear that Johnson was taking mostly from disaffected Republicans, who would've voted for a non-Trump candidate. Colorado is a state where that would've been a big deal.

Rubio personally opposes marijuana legalization but supports leaving it to the states. You'll notice this as the perfect position for Colorado; as long as other states don't legalize and tourists continue coming to Colorado for legal marijuana, Colorado makes a boatload of money; when other states legalize, Colorado loses possible revenue. Attacking him on this in Colorado would've backfired.

Is any state really "normal" for media? I agree that local conservatives in Wisconsin were unusually hostile to Trump, but compare his results there to IL/MI/OH, and they follow a logical, consistent pattern. I don't think an unusual media climate made a difference there. Arguably it did in Indiana, where it was favorable to Trump, but I kind of doubt that because Trump's surge at that time was national.

Well, Gardner ran as a slightly different candidate and claimed Udall was using 'smears'.

rubio is on record of stating that he supports enforcing federal drug laws in states like colorado.

Normal media is like fox and limbaugh, mostly neutral, WI was unique in which they were hostile to Trump. It matters when it comes to building momentum.

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So you have the support of federal drug law enforcement by rubio giving Hillary a win in libertarian-leaning CO.

And then you have NoVA which voted 60-40 for Obama and was upset over the government shutdown, which rubio, etc. supported. NoVA residents are also largely government workers and contractors most impacted by the shutdown. Maybe they would've been more comfortable with someone like Kasich to make it closer, like I said, but that's not rubio.

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My Rubio-optimistic map:

Marco Rubio/John Kasich-Republican: 321 EV 49.05%
Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine-Democratic: 217 EV 46.60%

And this was your map for Cruz.

It's hilarious when people post dramatically different maps for rubio and cruz, rubio and cruz were basically polling within the margin of error with each other, cruz only collapsed in apr/may due to Trump's attacks, and rubio was starting to decline in early march too.

Given some of their policies, the argument could be made that Cruz would actually be more favored than rubio in states like CO, due to rubio's federal drug law position.

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First of all, I don't think I've ever posted that map. Rubio polled ahead of Clinton while  she led Trump and Cruz,  while Trump did win it is arguable  that the same just because she was a very weak candidate. Rubio would have done worse with non college-educated whites but they are a Republican demographic and Clinton is alienating to them. Rubio would do better with college-educated whites, Trump fell with them compared to Romney, Rubio could get Romney's showing or likely better. Rubio would also do better with Hispanics. Virginia was slightly you the right of the nation in 2012, Rubio could win it, while Colorado was the tipping point state then. Pennsylvania was 0.01% more for Obama than Colorado in 2012. Rubio was touted as a Republican Obama ,while  that hurt him in the primary it would help in the general.  Rubio could present himself as the young, change candidate against old establishment candidate Clinton. He would likely do better in the debates and prepare for them, and he'd stay on message and not be accused of sexual assault. The fundamentals; country on wrong track, weak economy, foreign policy crises etc pointed to a GOP victory. I believe that victory could have been stronger than a 2% popular vote loss.

You probably just forgot. No, cruz's polling v. clinton didn't collapse until april/may, if you compare the compare the contemporary performance of cruz's polling to rubio's they were within the margin of error. rubio was polling ~+2 v. cruz back in the period of Jan/Feb, etc.

How is he going to be the change candidate when he has all the same policies as a non-change candidate? Hillary would just do comparisons vis-a-vis Mccain/Romney. Do better in the debates? All he does is put up generic boilerplate, based on memorized messages. The economy isn't that weak, except in middle america where a lot of that has to do with globalization, again, which rubio has no policies to help in that direction. He was saying the same as romney with regards to automation. Foreign Policy was one of the key issues that allowed Obama to be seen as the change candidate, supporting Mccain's old policies would be seen as a reverse of change. FP was a key differentiation that Obama had v. Hillary in the 2008 primary too.

Being seen as the 'republican obama' didn't hurt him in the primary at all, cruz had even less experience, what hurt him was being seen as controlled/scripted and being looked at as unfit for leadership and not being seen as being capable of making harsh critical decisions if need be. That same weakness would carry on into the general. No one thought Cruz was incapable of making bold decisions, Cruz was seen as a maverick. For all the talk about Bush, at least people saw him as a 'decider' and a strong leader, same with Cruz, rubio was seen as the epitome of indecision.

If you look at how Bush also campaigned as a change candidate in 2000, his FP in 2000 was similar to the posturing Cruz did this year, and he was seen as an outsider from out of washington and his FP was more realist, Cruz was the one who sort of had that parallel, not rubio. Cruz was trying to posture from that angle call the Iraq War a mistake, rubio was saying that it was not a mistake. So, rubio wouldn't be seen as a change, just a return to bush-era policies of nation-building, cruz said he was opposed to nation building. Obama was seen as having some radically different policies from both Clinton/Mccain, people saw that with cruz as well, not rubio.

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Well, Gardner ran as a slightly different candidate and claimed Udall was using 'smears'.

Right, and this worked. No reason it couldn't also work for a more socially moderate candidate.

rubio is on record of stating that he supports enforcing federal drug laws in states like colorado.

No. He has repeatedly said that this is a states' rights issue -- that he personally feels that states which legalize marijuana are making a mistake, and that he thinks states shouldn't do it, but he recognizes they have a right to. This is a misrepresentation of his position.

Normal media is like fox and limbaugh, mostly neutral, WI was unique in which they were hostile to Trump. It matters when it comes to building momentum.

The fact that Trump wasn't meaningfully stronger or weaker in Wisconsin compared to Illinois/Michigan/Ohio shows that this is probably not the case.

So you have the support of federal drug law enforcement by rubio giving Hillary a win in libertarian-leaning CO.

And then you have NoVA which voted 60-40 for Obama and was upset over the government shutdown, which rubio, etc. supported. NoVA residents are also largely government workers and contractors most impacted by the shutdown. Maybe they would've been more comfortable with someone like Kasich to make it closer, like I said, but that's not rubio.

Gillespie supported the shutdown too, actually quite vocally. He lost Fairfax County, the heart of NoVa, 40/58. Rubio could've definitely hit those numbers. Trump lost 29/64; quite a different scenario.

A 60-40 defeat in NoVa for a Republican is OK; it can be made up with by other parts of the state. A 65-30 defeat, like the one Trump had, cannot be.

For the record, this is my Rubio v. Clinton map:

Rubio leads Hillary 259-247, with three states as arguable between the three candidates. My gut feeling is that Rubio would've carried Virginia while losing Colorado and Wisconsin, but all three would've been very close, very likely within a percentage point. Hillary wins if she could sweep all three, which I find doubtful. I gave NH & ME-2 to Hillary though the truth is we need more data before we can say what Trump did there is unique to him or a new part of the Republican coalition.

Cruz would've lost Colorado and Virginia but carried Wisconsin, and then either won the election in the House or used ME-2 to win 270-268. Hard to say, again, until we see how ME-2 will behave in the post-Trump world, which we won't see for many years, unfortunately.

No, rubio's on record of explicitly favoring federal drug law enforcement in the states, his position is not like cruz/rand at all. He is only in favor of the states allowing medicinal marijuana, not recreational use.

Well, you could see how Trump benefited from momentum as in the case of IN, not so much in WI, due to the media markets.

If your argument is that Warner won due to strength from other parts of the state, then Tim Kaine would've also been able to pull more support from other parts of the state to offset it.

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Well, Gardner ran as a slightly different candidate and claimed Udall was using 'smears'.

Right, and this worked. No reason it couldn't also work for a more socially moderate candidate.

rubio is on record of stating that he supports enforcing federal drug laws in states like colorado.

No. He has repeatedly said that this is a states' rights issue -- that he personally feels that states which legalize marijuana are making a mistake, and that he thinks states shouldn't do it, but he recognizes they have a right to. This is a misrepresentation of his position.

Normal media is like fox and limbaugh, mostly neutral, WI was unique in which they were hostile to Trump. It matters when it comes to building momentum.

The fact that Trump wasn't meaningfully stronger or weaker in Wisconsin compared to Illinois/Michigan/Ohio shows that this is probably not the case.

So you have the support of federal drug law enforcement by rubio giving Hillary a win in libertarian-leaning CO.

And then you have NoVA which voted 60-40 for Obama and was upset over the government shutdown, which rubio, etc. supported. NoVA residents are also largely government workers and contractors most impacted by the shutdown. Maybe they would've been more comfortable with someone like Kasich to make it closer, like I said, but that's not rubio.

Gillespie supported the shutdown too, actually quite vocally. He lost Fairfax County, the heart of NoVa, 40/58. Rubio could've definitely hit those numbers. Trump lost 29/64; quite a different scenario.

A 60-40 defeat in NoVa for a Republican is OK; it can be made up with by other parts of the state. A 65-30 defeat, like the one Trump had, cannot be.

For the record, this is my Rubio v. Clinton map:

Rubio leads Hillary 259-247, with three states as arguable between the three candidates. My gut feeling is that Rubio would've carried Virginia while losing Colorado and Wisconsin, but all three would've been very close, very likely within a percentage point. Hillary wins if she could sweep all three, which I find doubtful. I gave NH & ME-2 to Hillary though the truth is we need more data before we can say what Trump did there is unique to him or a new part of the Republican coalition.

Cruz would've lost Colorado and Virginia but carried Wisconsin, and then either won the election in the House or used ME-2 to win 270-268. Hard to say, again, until we see how ME-2 will behave in the post-Trump world, which we won't see for many years, unfortunately.

No, rubio's on record of explicitly favoring federal drug law enforcement in the states, his position is not like cruz/rand at all. He is only in favor of the states allowing medicinal marijuana, not recreational use.

No. Rubio supports legalizing medical marijuana outright, in the individual states. He does not support individual states legalizing recreational marijuana, but he recognizes their right to do so: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/marijuana-gop-114786

Well, you could see how Trump benefited from momentum as in the case of IN, not so much in WI, due to the media markets.

That was almost a month later. It hadn't begun yet by the time Wisconsin voted. If Indiana had voted on the same day as Wisconsin, Cruz would have won there too. If Wisconsin voted the same day as Indiana, Trump would have won there too. It was all a timing thing.

If your argument is that Warner won due to strength from other parts of the state, then Tim Kaine would've also been able to pull more support from other parts of the state to offset it.

The 2012 Senate race in Virginia reflected the presidential race almost perfectly; Kaine really wasn't meaningfully stronger than Obama everywhere. He is Generic D in Virginia. Warner has his own special strengths, which Kaine lacks. He comes from Richmond City; in 2012, Obama won 79% there, while Kaine won 80%. (Hillary Clinton won...the same 79%. Nothing changed).

That argument doesn't hold water.

That's what his spokesman said, that's not what he said, he only favors allowing states to legalize marijuana medicinally, not recreationally. He would enforce federal laws in states.

seehttp://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Marco_Rubio_Drugs.htm

If you think it's going to be a close race, then Kaine would've boosted her enough the way Graham would've boosted Gore in 2000.

I disagree when you say that the exact circumstances were the same, very possible Trump still loses WI due to the media market against him there, and Trump wins IN by an even greater margin he did with MO.

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Well, Gardner ran as a slightly different candidate and claimed Udall was using 'smears'.

Right, and this worked. No reason it couldn't also work for a more socially moderate candidate.

rubio is on record of stating that he supports enforcing federal drug laws in states like colorado.

No. He has repeatedly said that this is a states' rights issue -- that he personally feels that states which legalize marijuana are making a mistake, and that he thinks states shouldn't do it, but he recognizes they have a right to. This is a misrepresentation of his position.

Normal media is like fox and limbaugh, mostly neutral, WI was unique in which they were hostile to Trump. It matters when it comes to building momentum.

The fact that Trump wasn't meaningfully stronger or weaker in Wisconsin compared to Illinois/Michigan/Ohio shows that this is probably not the case.

So you have the support of federal drug law enforcement by rubio giving Hillary a win in libertarian-leaning CO.

And then you have NoVA which voted 60-40 for Obama and was upset over the government shutdown, which rubio, etc. supported. NoVA residents are also largely government workers and contractors most impacted by the shutdown. Maybe they would've been more comfortable with someone like Kasich to make it closer, like I said, but that's not rubio.

Gillespie supported the shutdown too, actually quite vocally. He lost Fairfax County, the heart of NoVa, 40/58. Rubio could've definitely hit those numbers. Trump lost 29/64; quite a different scenario.

A 60-40 defeat in NoVa for a Republican is OK; it can be made up with by other parts of the state. A 65-30 defeat, like the one Trump had, cannot be.

For the record, this is my Rubio v. Clinton map:

Rubio leads Hillary 259-247, with three states as arguable between the three candidates. My gut feeling is that Rubio would've carried Virginia while losing Colorado and Wisconsin, but all three would've been very close, very likely within a percentage point. Hillary wins if she could sweep all three, which I find doubtful. I gave NH & ME-2 to Hillary though the truth is we need more data before we can say what Trump did there is unique to him or a new part of the Republican coalition.

Cruz would've lost Colorado and Virginia but carried Wisconsin, and then either won the election in the House or used ME-2 to win 270-268. Hard to say, again, until we see how ME-2 will behave in the post-Trump world, which we won't see for many years, unfortunately.

No, rubio's on record of explicitly favoring federal drug law enforcement in the states, his position is not like cruz/rand at all. He is only in favor of the states allowing medicinal marijuana, not recreational use.

No. Rubio supports legalizing medical marijuana outright, in the individual states. He does not support individual states legalizing recreational marijuana, but he recognizes their right to do so: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/marijuana-gop-114786

Well, you could see how Trump benefited from momentum as in the case of IN, not so much in WI, due to the media markets.

That was almost a month later. It hadn't begun yet by the time Wisconsin voted. If Indiana had voted on the same day as Wisconsin, Cruz would have won there too. If Wisconsin voted the same day as Indiana, Trump would have won there too. It was all a timing thing.

If your argument is that Warner won due to strength from other parts of the state, then Tim Kaine would've also been able to pull more support from other parts of the state to offset it.

The 2012 Senate race in Virginia reflected the presidential race almost perfectly; Kaine really wasn't meaningfully stronger than Obama everywhere. He is Generic D in Virginia. Warner has his own special strengths, which Kaine lacks. He comes from Richmond City; in 2012, Obama won 79% there, while Kaine won 80%. (Hillary Clinton won...the same 79%. Nothing changed).

That argument doesn't hold water.

That's what his spokesman said, that's not what he said, he only favors allowing states to legalize marijuana medicinally, not recreationally. He would enforce federal laws in states.

seehttp://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Marco_Rubio_Drugs.htm

If you think it's going to be a close race, then Kaine would've boosted her enough the way Graham would've boosted Gore in 2000.

I disagree when you say that the exact circumstances were the same, very possible Trump still loses WI due to the media market against him there, and Trump wins IN by a similar margin he did with MO

Bob Graham had served Florida much longer in 2000 than Tim Kaine had served Virginia in 2016, and also had a much more impressive electoral record (Kaine has 2 hard-fought prominent victories, against Kilgore and Allen; Graham had 5 statewide victories, all against fairly touted opponents, only 2 of which were even single-digits). I don't think they're comparable. Kaine would not have made much of a difference for Hillary in VA. Even if he had, Rubio could still have won CO or WI, and thereby the Presidency. He needs one of those three. I personally think VA is likeliest, but the odds of him winning any one of them would've been quite high.

I don't think the media market in WI is that powerful. Maybe Trump would've eked out a win in an earlier Indiana primary, certainly, but he wouldn't have had the 15-point win he had in reality. A Missouri-style victory is a plausible result too.

I already showed you with CO, rubio does not have a rand/cruz like position towards recreational marijuana use in the states, he only supports the states rights' in the context of medicinal marijuana, that would've killed him in CO.

Kaine is very popular in NoVA, which give him his victories, that would give him the requisite margin needed.

Go look at the areas of IN, IL and WI in performance comparison.

What mainly hit Trump in WI was the WOW area and the media market. Trump's support in IN was more evenly distributed. Trump was a lot more popular in metro-Chicago in NW IN, and he always had a strong base of support across the state:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/12/2016-indiana-county-predicts-every-election-trump-fever-213411

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People underestimate Rubio's unlikability.  2016 was an anti-establishment year, and Rubio reeks of the establishment.  He owes his career to powerful special interests, and until 2016, he had never won FL with a majority (he won with under 50% against two candidates running to the left of him in 2010).  He was a first term Senator with a horrible attendance record who came off as the Establishment's favorite Management Trainee, and who served the purpose of advancing a kind of false sense of "diversity".  A smarmy little puke.  2016 wasn't the year of smarmy little pukes; it was the year of rebellion against national elites of all kinds, and Rubio was not destined to do well in this environment, period.

Setting aside whether Rubio would've come off as more establishment than Clinton or not, and how much it might've mattered, 2016 really wasn't any sort of rebellion against national elites. Both gubernatorial and congressional reelection rates, normally sky-high, surged in 2016. Approval of the incumbent President reached the highest level at a presidential election since 2000. Anti-establishment candidates won far from a majority in both primaries (43% in the Democratic one, 39% in the Republican one), with the weaker anti-establishment candidate being nominated due to vote-splitting, and then losing the general election popular vote fairly decisively, in fact receiving less support than Mitt Romney.

Indeed, the evidence points to 2016 being an atypically establishment year -- probably the most establishment year since ~2004 or 2002 -- where Trump, through a combination of some canny strategy, lots of pure luck, and an extremely favorable distribution of supporters in the primary and general, was able to win anyway. It won't be remembered that way historically (the Trump victory is going to be what's discussed in the historical record, which is pretty logical), but that's what happened.

Also, even at his nadir in March when his campaign had collapsed Rubio was still seen as more likable than Clinton or Trump by pretty much everyone. Likability was not going to be a hindrance for him in 2016.

Cruz's unfavs were very similar to Rubio's initially, it didn't collapse until Apr/May when he got more media attention, a lot of it is built in due to political polarization. And Cruz's favs overall were similar to Jeb's and Hillary's in the end.

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Rubio wouldn't have lost IA in the GE, but he probably wouldn't have won NV either. I think it would have been Romney 2012 + FL + IA + OH + WI + ME-02 + maybe CO + maybe PA.

Well, keep in mind that ME-02 is lepage/trump land, but besides that, rubio would have problems in CO due to his federal drug position, and Hillary would've been able to run a more effective rustbelt campaign without the russian hacks, if it was a more conventional race, allowing her to consolidate more votes from bernie supporters. She'd remind people of rubio's positions on the auto bailouts, etc. and how it's the same as romney's. She does that and she is much more likely to keep the blue wall in tact causing an electoral problem for him.

*Kasich is a more unique kind of candidate with the specific type of regional appeal for the area, which is why they shouldn't be grouped in together electorally. Remember, Kasich was going to do the OH-PA-Upstate NY route, which is very similar to what Trump did, Jeb and Rubio don't have the same appeal in that corridor, it's highly probable that Jeb/Rubio would've tried to push through NV anyway, and run into EV issues and come up short electorally.

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Rubio wouldn't have lost IA in the GE, but he probably wouldn't have won NV either. I think it would have been Romney 2012 + FL + IA + OH + WI + ME-02 + maybe CO + maybe PA.

Well, keep in mind that ME-02 is lepage/trump land, but besides that, rubio would have problems in CO due to his federal drug position, and Hillary would've been able to run a more effective rustbelt campaign without the russian hacks, if it was a more conventional race, allowing her to consolidate more votes from bernie supporters. She'd remind people of rubio's positions on the auto bailouts, etc. and how it's the same as romney's. She does that and she is much more likely to keep the blue wall in tact causing an electoral problem for him.

*Kasich is a more unique kind of candidate with the specific type of regional appeal for the area, which is why they shouldn't be grouped in together electorally. Remember, Kasich was going to do the OH-PA-Upstate NY route, which is very similar to what Trump did, Jeb and Rubio don't have the same appeal in that corridor, it's highly probable that Jeb/Rubio would've tried to push through NV anyway, and run into EV issues and come up short electorally.

I must have missed the part where Putin's agents forced Hillary to make the deplorable comment and not campaign aggressively in WI or MI.

She was talking about Trump voters in that speech, remember, she was trying to court upper-class republicans, and she only made those decisions in the context of Trump.

People underestimate Rubio's unlikability.  2016 was an anti-establishment year, and Rubio reeks of the establishment.  He owes his career to powerful special interests, and until 2016, he had never won FL with a majority (he won with under 50% against two candidates running to the left of him in 2010).  He was a first term Senator with a horrible attendance record who came off as the Establishment's favorite Management Trainee, and who served the purpose of advancing a kind of false sense of "diversity".  A smarmy little puke.  2016 wasn't the year of smarmy little pukes; it was the year of rebellion against national elites of all kinds, and Rubio was not destined to do well in this environment, period.

Rubio won in 2010 as an insurgent candidate, upsetting Crist in the gop primary. His voting record in the Senate has been consistently conservative. He is very knowledgeable on a wide array of issues and played a key role in risk corridors for insurance companies in the Obamacare battle. His one flaw was his role in Gang of Eight; he honestly thought he could help craft an immigration deal until Schumer stabbed him in the back.

The Rubio hate is not borne out by data. He was very well liked during the GOP primary but didn't gain traction due to the relentless attacks by Jeb, divided field, lack of ground game in the early states, and the debate debacle against Christie.

In his re-election in 2016, Rubio outperformed Trump and won 48% of latinos and 17% of blacks.

He was part of the tea party wave. Schumer didn't stab him in the back, that bill was supposed to pass and it was intended to not have any teeth, it failed because Cantor was primaried.

Other way around, rubio only lasted as long as he did, due to his refusal to attack Trump, Walker, etc. collapsed when they did, and rubio also collapsed when he did. His whole debate strategy and campaign strategy from day 1 was simply reciting rehearsed lines and using scripted responses to select questions, this was well-known on the campaign trail and reported by journalists, all Christie did was call him out on it. Christie never did the same for Cruz, because he had respect for Cruz as a person and a leader, even if he disagreed with him more on policy. All Jeb was doing was calling rubio out on his refusal to attack Trump.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kucRXG26htU

Isakson in his GA senate race won the same percentage of blacks, he performed the usual percentage that republicans normally get with non-hispanic cubans, his main advantage is in FL particular demographic with cubans, by the way his senate opponent was abandoned by the dems who used the money for that race to use in other races, had they given him the full-support they originally intended, those margins would've been reduced for him. Burr 'outperformed' by a similar margin.

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Rubio would not have won NV. Nor would his victory have depended on NV. I've laid this out multiple times.

They pulled support, because the FL media market was expensive, so they tried to pay for other races, otherwise his margin would've been the same as burr & co, and he did similar in the end anyway, so it wasn't that special.

It is his position, his only position with regards to state's rights on marijuana was in the context of medicinal marijuana, he has remained 100% opposed to recreational marijuana at the federal level and supports enforcing those laws in the states, as I showed you in the links. He has the same exact position as Santorum and Christie on the issue, open to states legalizing medicinal marijuana, but not for recreational use.  His position is not like rand's or cruz's, which is state's rights.