If Rubio had won

[mvd10]

Democrats would have a lot to be afraid of. Republicans probably would have more seats in the house and the senate and Rubio would have been a lot more competent than Trump. I'd say that Obamacare repeal would have narrowly passed with tax reform and spending cuts coming next because apparently the GOP can use reconciliation twice (or four times depending on how you look at it). Rubio would quickly become unpopular because of his rather radical agenda, but I think the results would come soon enough for him to win 2020 (and the 2018 map is strongly in favor of the GOP anyway).

[mvd10]

I feel like without Trump's unique appeal and candidacy, Rubio would not have won the same kind of non-college educated whites that Trump won over Obama. The coalition would look a lot different, because both Clinton and Rubio were seen as appealing to college-educated upper-class suburban whites. He probably wouldn't have won MI, WI or PA. Probably his map would've looked closer to a Romney map +4-5 points everywhere. Clear popular vote victory though.

I can see him pulling off PA with completely different demographics (probably focusing on the Philly suburbs rather than Western PA), but are you saying there's a potential for a reversal of the electoral and popular vote? As in, Clinton wins the electoral college but Rubio wins the popular vote?

I can see that happen. A GOP candidate who does fairly well with minorities but doesn't overperform with non college-educated whites can win the PV but lose the EC. But if you max out non college-educated whites you massively overperform in the EC. The electoral college basically was tailormade for a candidate like Trump. But I think Rubio would have won the PV by enough to defeat Clinton with over 300 EVs.