What would a Rubio electoral map have looked like?

[Mr. Smith]

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.

[uti2]

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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

[uti2]

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.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Basically a rerun of 2012 with a 3.5 point nationwide swing. Some improvement for Rubio in Virginia (due to the Black vote) and probably Iowa (HRC's no Obama), making Virginia a tossup, but Clinton still having an edge there due to the continued expansion of NoVa. Don't overestimate Rubio; don't underestimate Rubio's similarity to Romney, and don't underestimate HRC's ability to shape-shift. This party system is extremely stable. Had it not been for Trump, the state-by-state correlation between the 2012 and 2016 results would have been over .98, especially if the candidate most similar to Romney (Rubio) was picked.

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-Bingo.

[Mr. Morden]

Basically a rerun of 2012 with a 3.5 point nationwide swing. Some improvement for Rubio in Virginia (due to the Black vote) and probably Iowa (HRC's no Obama), making Virginia a tossup, but Clinton still having an edge there due to the continued expansion of NoVa. Don't overestimate Rubio; don't underestimate Rubio's similarity to Romney, and don't underestimate HRC's ability to shape-shift. This party system is extremely stable. Had it not been for Trump, the state-by-state correlation between the 2012 and 2016 results would have been over .98, especially if the candidate most similar to Romney (Rubio) was picked.

The argument against that would be this:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-not-all-about-clinton-the-midwest-was-getting-redder-before-2016/

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

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-Half of 2015 was the year of Trump. So that survey may well be colored by his unique candidacy.

[Mr. Morden]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

-Half of 2015 was the year of Trump. So that survey may well be colored by his unique candidacy.

Trump being a ~25-30% plurality favorite in Republican primary polls for a few months resulted in swing voters in the Rust Belt switching from "approve" to "disapprove" on Obama's job ratings (and caused the reverse to happen in the Sunbelt)?  I'm skeptical.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Trump was by far the biggest story of 2015 in the United States, outshining anything Obama did. His favorability ratings did not change substantially from the time he became the Republican frontrunner to November 8, 2016. Everyone had an opinion of him by late July 2015. You are assuming Trump favorability and Obama favorability are independent variables. I doubt that's the case.

[Vosem]

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.

[uti2]

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.

[dax00]

trump states -WI, -MI, -PA, -ME2, -IA, +NV, +NH, +CO

[Vosem]

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.

[Mr. Morden]

Trump was by far the biggest story of 2015 in the United States, outshining anything Obama did. His favorability ratings did not change substantially from the time he became the Republican frontrunner to November 8, 2016. Everyone had an opinion of him by late July 2015. You are assuming Trump favorability and Obama favorability are independent variables. I doubt that's the case.

No, I'm assuming that the geographic distribution of both is dependent on which regions of the country are more Democratic and more Republican, and that said distribution had changed from 2012 to 2015.  I don't think that Trump's mere position as the plurality leader in the GOP primary field in the latter half of 2015 instantly caused Obama's job approval rating to rise in places where Trump was less popular than Generic R or drop in places where Trump was more popular than Generic R.  That seems absurd to me.

[uti2]

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.

[Vosem]

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.

[uti2]

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.

[Vosem]

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.

[uti2]

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.

[Vosem]

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.

[uti2]

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.

[uti2]

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.

[Pericles]

My Rubio-optimistic map:

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

[uti2]

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.

[Pericles]

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.

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.