Which Hillary states would Rubio have won?

[uti2]

Rubio would have easily won the national popular vote as well by losing CA by 15-20% instead of Trump's 30, losing IL by 10-15%, and winning TX by around 15%, GA by 8-10%, FL by 4-6%.

Rubio was consistently tied in FL polling from day 1 vs. Hillary, while he was always up ~7 on murphy:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/fl/florida_rubio_vs_clinton-3553.html

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/senate/fl/florida_senate_rubio_vs_murphy-5222.html

Senate race =/ presidential.

[uti2]

If Romney couldn't win Virginia in 2012, I don't think Rubio would've been able to either. NoVa was probably going to trend Democratic regardless of who the Republican nominee was.

Romney lost VA by 3.9% to a very popular incumbent President. Romney's social conservatism didn't play too well in NOVA either. He lost Fairfax County by 20.5% and traditional GOP stronghold Loudoun County by 5.5%. Rubio would have won Loudoun outright and lost Fairfax by 10-15%, which should be enough to carry the state. Keep in mind that in 2004 Bush won VA by 8.2% despite losing Fairfax by 7.2%.

Rubio resonates well in NOVA. He won that region handily against Trump in the GOP primary and his latino background, life story, youth, charisma, and pro-business policies are very much in line with NOVA.

Rubio is more socially conservative than romney & the only reason why rubio did better than expected in VA primary was due to government worker Dem voters in Fairfax crossing over to vote for him to 'stop Trump', he doesn't necessarily have appeal in that region, they just wanted to 'Stop Trump'. This was widely reported in contemporary news stories.

Trump won every other VA county by 10%+ meeting the polling average, only reason Fairfax numbers were off was due to the dem crossovers. There were articles like this in the atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/why-liberals-should-vote-for-marco-rubio/471444/

+
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/clinton-trump-win-virginia-overall-rubio-wins-in-fairfax-county/article_4412522c-e031-11e5-88c2-6bdb7adf8580.html

Dukakis also was an immigrant with a life story, youth and 'charisma', how did he do?

[uti2]

More links on the D government workers in Fairfax and their strategic voting pattern:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/01/liberals-explain-why-theyre-strategically-voting-as-republicans/

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Virginia-Election-Results-370707361.html

[uti2]

I think he could have narrowly won MN, but any other states? No. That said, he would have won all the Trump states except maybe MI.

Trump won more raw votes than Toomey, would turnout have been the same in PA?

Of course, part of the reason for D weakness in Upper Midwest may have been due to Hillary's lack of campaigning in those states. Hillary campaigned aggressively in SW + Georgia and was able to improve the margins in those states, she left out the Midwest by taking it for granted vs. Trump. It is important to consider the context, the Obama coalition held everywhere, except for the Midwest.

[uti2]

Rubio would have easily won the national popular vote as well by losing CA by 15-20% instead of Trump's 30, losing IL by 10-15%, and winning TX by around 15%, GA by 8-10%, FL by 4-6%.

Rubio was consistently tied in FL polling from day 1 vs. Hillary, while he was always up ~7 on murphy:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/fl/florida_rubio_vs_clinton-3553.html

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/senate/fl/florida_senate_rubio_vs_murphy-5222.html

Senate race =/ presidential.

Hillary led Trump in Florida and nationwide by a large margin during the campaign but because she was very unpopular and ran a terrible campaign(not because Trump was popular!), she lost Florida and the election.

The type of campaign Jeb/Rubio were running was identical to the type of campaign Hillary ran during the GE. They were going to dodge the base to focus on courting suburban democrats with platitudes as Hillary did with suburban republicans.

They shared many of the same weaknesses as Hillary (though she originally wanted to run an Obama 2012 type strategy but changed her mind due to Trump).

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/fl/florida_trump_vs_clinton-5635.html

If you look at the FL numbers for Trump v. Clinton back in 2015, they were in a tight margin, there were regular periods of volatility during the election season overall which habitually reverted to that tight margin.

[uti2]

I looked at the numbers for MN(RCP average) and Rubio was up by 4% there so now I think he'd actually win it.

To recap, he was statistically tied in his home state while being up +4 in MN, Carson was also +2 in MN.

[uti2]

Rubio would have won Florida in the end though especially since he'd likely run a better campaign than Clinton. He could run on change(bit like Obama) and portray Clinton as basically a Washington insider with too much baggage. He would be disciplined and not be the most unpopular major party nominee in history.

His campaign was identical to Clinton's if not slightly more disorganized. Obama would be running the counterargument likening rubio to Mccain and arguing him to be 'more of the same'. Obama had significant policy arguments for his 'change', people were upset with Bush's foreign policy, and Obama ran against the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, which rubio fundamentally embodies.

Yet, despite that, Obama only barely defeated Clinton. The '08 dem primary was closer than the 2016 election.

Cruz was running on the 'change' 'anti-washington cartel' card on the GOP side.

You know who was incredibly disciplined and used rehearsed messages to the T (& regularly changed views based on polling recommendations) and was nicknamed the 'Little man'? Thomas Dewey.

Atlas wisdom: Trump won so he was obviously most electable candidate-DUH! Clinton was VERY STRONG candidate-only Trump could beat her, never mind -14% favorability?! Muh WWC populism, WWC only demographic that matters.

Rubio lost Latinos overall to Murphy in his senate race. Lost non-Cuban Latinos by standard GOP margins.

Ted Cruz's favorables were actually originally nearer to Rubio's, his numbers didn't collapse until early May due to an intense campaign against Trump. Cruz & Rubio had their favorable numbers generally move in tandem, until Rubio dropped out.

[uti2]

2016 was a change election, not a natural Democratic win. Rubio would have been able to run on that, and he wasn't identical to Clinton. Even if he was identical to Clinton, he'd win because his favorables were higher than hers while Trump's were lower. 8 years after Bush people wouldn't believe Obama's argument, especially since Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic candidate. It would be a charismatic(the media would certainly portray him as such) young Senator against the epitome of the DC establishment, Hillary Clinton. Rubio would also be able to avoid the constant gaffes and scandals that dogged Trump. Yes, he'd lose Hispanics, but he'd do better with them than Trump, and also do better with college-educated whites and many demographics. After all, if losing the popular vote by 2% is really the best the GOP can do, they don't have a bright future.

You mean the best the GOP can do? Rubio's candidacy was modeled on the incumbent Bush '04 campaign, except more conservative, and the best the GOP could do in '04 (despite post-9/11 national security argument) was win a similar margin to Trump in the rustbelt/OH.

What happened to Michael Dukakis & Thomas Dewey?

Everyone hated Bush Sr, and thought he was a corrupt kleptocratic elitist.

As I mentioned with regards to Cruz, both Cruz & Rubio had their favorables moving down, Rubio dropped out, but they were on a similar trajectory, the bottom only fell out for Cruz after a vicious confrontation with Trump towards the end.

[uti2]

Hillary Clinton's favorability numbers were not normal. Rubio's were higher than hers even at the end and he got battered by Trump too, and most likely he'd have managed to lift his once he got out of the primary.

Why do you assume that?
Cruz/Rubio voters were GOP regulars. Trump's voters tended to be R-leaners/independents with no loyalties to the GOP. If Trump told them the primary was 'rigged by the establishment', why would they be motivated to turnout?

Kasich is an interesting alternative argument because he was the only other GOP candidate to win a significant number of independents. Kasich may have had an alternative coalition based on those voters.

[uti2]

^By the way, about the 'battering', it didn't really get that bad for Cruz, if you check out the contemporary time frame in March, Cruz & Rubio's numbers were moving in tandem. Cruz's numbers only collapsed after Trump tipped the scale and started getting even more vicious against Cruz & his family in Apr/Early May.

[uti2]

Rubio would also have gotten a lot more from GOP donors. I believe the Koch brothers were going to spend $750 million on the race before Trump. So Hillary's fundraising advantage was primarily due to Trump being inept in that area. And negative campaigning is more effective when done by Republicans, so the GOP would get their base out and depress Democratic turnout.

So rubio runs a strategy without specifically courting the base a la Hillary & his attempts to get the base out about benghazi the way dukakis got the base out by shouting about iran-contra?

Meanwhile, Rubio goes out of the way to advertise the TPP, suggests even more free trade should be implemented and goes out of the way to suggest Iran needs regime change a la Mccain '08, and that's supposed to make Democrats apathetic?

Benghazi had 0 impact on the 2012 election, argument could be made that Trump's lack of direct funding was supplemented by his support from Russia.

[uti2]

Rubio's favorability was -4% according to RCP and without Trump would probably be virtually even and then go positive after the primary. It was much higher than Clinton's and Rubio would be able to keep Clinton's down with a focused negative campaign against her. Cruz's unfavorables were much higher and more voters were decided on him-they disliked him-so at best for him it would be a slightly stronger version of Trump against Clinton(maybe he'd be tied with Clinton instead of even less popular than her).

It's almost as if avoiding attacks on the frontrunner out of fear of being attacked allows you to keep your favorables up, what happens when you finally start attacking?

https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/ted-cruz-favorable-rating

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/marco-rubio-favorable-rating

[uti2]

Rubio's favorability was -4% according to RCP and without Trump would probably be virtually even and then go positive after the primary. It was much higher than Clinton's and Rubio would be able to keep Clinton's down with a focused negative campaign against her. Cruz's unfavorables were much higher and more voters were decided on him-they disliked him-so at best for him it would be a slightly stronger version of Trump against Clinton(maybe he'd be tied with Clinton instead of even less popular than her).

It's almost as if avoiding attacks on the frontrunner out of fear of being attacked allows you to keep your favorables up, what happens when you finally start attacking?

https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/ted-cruz-favorable-rating

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/marco-rubio-favorable-rating

In this scenario-does Trump run? Is Rubio nominated from a brokered convention? Does he beat Trump in a close primary battle? Or does Rubio do well in the early states and steamroll his way to victory with opposition rolling over soon after? That would have an impact.

Considering the context in that Rubio got steamrolled in his home state, it's hard to imagine rubio getting the nomination in any scenario other than a brokered convention with or without Trump.

[uti2]

^It would actually be entirely logically consistent if one goes by the premise that Trump is 'such a weak candidate' that Jeb Bush wins FL without Trump in the race.

If, after all, Trump is so weak and only won due to 'free media',why wouldn't Jeb be able to do it? He had all the money to spend in media dollars, Trump only didn't need to do that due to his free media. Trump was basically a tabloid sub-genre story for the media, without Trump they would have gone back to missing planes and the usual routine.

[uti2]

Possibly Virginia, but I think Rubio would have struggled badly in the debates and wouldn't have done much (if at all) better than Trump on net.

He would have done much better than Trump, who was crushed in the debates by Clinton.

How substantive were those debates?

What kind of issues do you think a normal republican would have discussed? They would've discussed privatizing SS/Medicare, praising Free Trade reforms even more aggressive than the TPP, and in Rubio's case, he would have made a specific argument for regime in Iran while also discussing his failure to deal with immigration while simultaneously being forced to defend the same GOP Congress that blocked his bill? He would've used the same anecdotes over and over again, so you would be able to anticipate his statements well in advance.

Or how about the fact that his tax plan would cut tax rates for Romney & The Koch Brothers to zero (his plan called for 0 capital gains/dividends taxes)? All of these policies are supposed to make Democrats apathetic?

If you believe fundamentally the US is a far-right country, then sure, it would be logical to believe that platform is electable, but otherwise, he was running the most radical conservative campaign policy-wise since Goldwater, he wasn't that different from Cruz in policy.

But the idea that you can elect someone with those policies and then expect a 'Liberal Progressive' wave to take place in 2020 or 2024 is a bit of a joke. Contrasts like that don't happen in terms of how electoral coalitions evolve. Both Hoover and Carter actually adopted many reformist principles their own parties opposed. Bush in 2000 fundamentally ran a centrist-y Kasich style campaign.

Let's put it this way, Sanders-ism would've died even before it even remotely would have had a plausible chance.

[uti2]

^I can't stress this point enough. You can't go from a platform advocating for 0% taxes on the Koch Brothers' earnings to a platform advocating for 70% in the next term. That's not how it works.

These assumptions can only work if you assume Dems moving to the right, which moderate Dems would've had to be if they were willing to elect someone with such sharp right-wing policies to begin with.

[uti2]

People here are acting like Rubio would do better because he's a "moderate" but that is a dubious assertion.

Rubio would do better because he was a candidate not crippled by scandal and hated by the majority of the US electorate.

Literally all Rubio would have to do to win comfortably is say "emails" every 15 seconds and unlike with Trump Clinton would have no counter.

Rubio would figure out a way to flub it, at least Trump could be like "well at least I admit it".

Same way Dukakis somehow didn't manage to beat H.W. by bashing Iran-Contra over the head.

except Iran-Contra was resolved by mid 1987 (at least when it came to whether HW was involved in it or not) while the Email Scandal dragged on till July of election year.

Bush Sr. wasn't personally cleared by the Independent Counsel of anything.

There were rumors in Israel that Amiram Nir had confided in Bush Sr, Nir died in late November 1988.


Oliver North was literally indicted in the July of 1988:

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/21/us/civil-liberties-union-asks-court-to-quash-iran-contra-indictment.html

The Independent Counsel pertaining to Iran-Contra continued to exist right up until mid-1993.

Multiple actors continued to be indicted right up until the end of 1992. The Independent Counsel issued its final report in mid-1993.

Lawrence Walsh was in charge of the investigation and indicted Caspar Weinberger right before Bush Sr. left office.

[uti2]

People here are acting like Rubio would do better because he's a "moderate" but that is a dubious assertion.

Rubio would do better because he was a candidate not crippled by scandal and hated by the majority of the US electorate.

Go look back at the context of the purported polling r.e. favorables:

It's almost as if avoiding attacks on the frontrunner out of fear of being attacked allows you to keep your favorables up, what happens when you finally start attacking?

https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/ted-cruz-favorable-rating

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/marco-rubio-favorable-rating

[uti2]

^To add the above point, Dukakis quite literally was up over Bush Sr. by double digits in early polling and had a net favorables margin of 67-10.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/05/27/dukakis-takes-early-lead-over-bush/0ed5eed4-7b0e-44e4-8c13-6adff6603e82/

Favorability numbers are not fixed, they change over the course of campaigning. Being disliked is generally just an indictator of how well-known you are.

Obama was more ostensibly disliked than Mccain and Romney. Same goes for GWB v. Kerry & even Reagan vs. Carter & Mondale.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-most-hated-candidate-usually-wins/article/2590520


This article is also actually from December 18, 1987:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,145687,00.html

"Dukakis and Paul Simon are the only two with relatively low negatives"

Dukakis had amongst the lowest unfavorables in the entire Democratic field in terms of early favorables.

[uti2]

^To add the above point, Dukakis quite literally was up over Bush Sr. by double digits in early polling and had a net favorables margin of 67-10.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/05/27/dukakis-takes-early-lead-over-bush/0ed5eed4-7b0e-44e4-8c13-6adff6603e82/

Favorability numbers are not fixed, they change over the course of campaigning. Being disliked is generally just an indictator of how well-known you are.

Obama was more ostensibly disliked than Mccain and Romney. Same goes for GWB v. Kerry & even Reagan vs. Carter & Mondale.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-most-hated-candidate-usually-wins/article/2590520


This article is also actually from December 18, 1987:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,145687,00.html

"Dukakis and Paul Simon are the only two with relatively low negatives"

Dukakis had amongst the lowest unfavorables in the entire Democratic field in terms of early favorables.

Uti has some weird hatred of Marco Rubio, especially when someone points out Rubio would win Pennsylvania.

I don't hate him, I've said before, he would do well against a Tim Kaine style democrat, just not someone who is aggressive. His whole candidacy is structured on assuming an easy-going ideological back and forth of talking points, he does not do well in dynamic engagements. For example, Clinton or Biden would've played off the differences between Mexicans and Cubans to start with (the conservative media would call it 'race baiting', but it would work) to damage his Latino outreach strategy.

Because I'm telling you PA does not like Bush-style conservatism. PA is a northeastern state at its electoral core, Trump was only able to win through Appalachia. The only way a normal republican takes PA is by moderating on social issues, and rubio was to the right of Trump on those social issues.

For people who bring up the Senate race, as I've explained before, Santorum won his PA senate race in 2000 easily, while Gore easily carried the state.

[uti2]

My primary point of contention is with people who say Rubio/Cruz are dramatically different electorally. Rubio/Cruz have almost the same positions, what's the difference besides some superficial attributes? It doesn't work if you look at the historical record.





These traits like youth are not advantages in and of themselves, they are double edged swords (see Reagan, etc.), Clinton or Biden would mock his youth and liken him to an insecure child. So, the superficial facade of his candidacy would be broken, what would he do following that?





He doesn't have any actual moderating policies of note when you look beyond the superficialities.
His policies for the most part are the same as Cruz, so electorally he'd functionally end up as equivalent to Cruz following the facade breaking down.

People mock Clinton for 'not having a message', but Bush Sr. didn't either, electoral coalition of the incumbency is the message by default.  What was the fundamental raison d'etre behind rubio's candidacy? He didn't have one, other than the fact that it was 'my party's turn', and 'my electoral coalition and views are better than yours', very Dukakis/Dewey-esque. For Bush it was about his 'faith', and he was the first major presidential candidate to actually offer concessions to the Religious Right and he also offered moderates policy concessions. For Reagan/Nixon/Kasich it was about conservatism with a Realpolitik bent (Reagan supported Gun Control as CA gov, he was one of the first governors in the country to legalize abortion, as president he banned machine guns, supported the brady bill, he used people like Manafort as intermediaries to open dialogues with dictators, etc.).


Rubio's Message was literally PNAC, meanwhile Clinton ran her campaign courting neocons was called 'a warmonger who would start WW3'. Let me get this straight, the Jeb/Rubio message was defeated in the election through Clinton, but that is somehow supposed to speak to the strength of that message? Clinton up against a normal republican would have literally been attacked for 'not wanting to start WW3 enough' instead.





Republicans who like Rubio generally assume an incredibly shallow and banal notion that Obama won because he was black and well-spoken (while curiously ignoring the exact nature of Obama's content in those speeches). This is objectively false. If anything, Obama's coalition was a trade-off (compare the Clinton/Gore/Kerry/Clinton '08 polling numbers in the Deep South to Obama's, compare what happened to the Blue Dogs & Southern Democrats in statewide races), but he was able to win primarily due to keeping the far-left in line by playing off against economically unpopular GOP positions (Bush was smart enough to moderate on that front to improve his margins a bit, but Christie & Kasich where the only candidates following in his footsteps on the economic front). It was the Far-Left/Bernie vote that elevated Obama in '08. had Obama's campaign in '08 been like Rubio's, 'vote for me i'm black and well-spoken but I support the same policies as Hillary(Jeb)', he would've easily lost, Obama won by reaching out to the far-left (slamming the establishment Foreign policy consensus, and attacking Free Trade, Wall street, etc.).





In contrast, if you look at the primary issue republicans care about, immigration, rubio literally did the equivalent of voting for the Iraq War. The GOP coalition is also more electorally precarious. Bush barely won 2 elections, Obama won both of his elections with ease, leaving more room for margin of error for Clinton.



If there was any candidate comparable to Obama based on campaign style it was Cruz.

Cruz was at least going all in on the base. The only reason why you'd assume Cruz to be unelectable vs. Rubio is if you fundamentally assume GOP policies to be unelectable at face value. Jeb & Rubio had similar strategies of flipping off the base, while superficially trying to court suburban Democrats (the people who love Clintonism and vote D for social reasons are not flipping for someone socially to the right of GWB). That approach would've been identical to the GOP courtship strategy Clinton specifically deployed against Trump, she changed her entire original Obama-2012-style strategy to mimic a Jeb/Rubio style campaign in reverse against Trump.


Also, here is the most amusing fact, Center-Leftists loved Clinton, the Democrats who hated her were Far-Leftists, who didn't believe she was left-wing enough, so they disliked Clinton for being a Wall Street/TPP-loving warmonger and they're supposed to vote for a right-wing republican who would attack Clinton for not wanting regime change in Iran and for not supporting free trade/wall street capital gains/dividends hard enough?





In conclusion I suspect someone might comment about how the ideas don't matter (despite the similar policy platforms of rubio and cruz), and it's all about the messenger (the argument being that Rubio is a 'better messenger' than Cruz), but here is the exact problem with that analysis:

They entire Jeb/Rubio strategy was predicated on trying to win over those very same suburban democrats who loved the Clinton years in the first place, so again, what incentive would they have to cross over? Let me get this straight, you think you can just call Clinton 'old', and literally manipulate the most educated suburban voters with simplistic slogans and memorized speeches? These voters you are talking about are quite literally the voters most likely to pay attention to policy details and look beyond slogans.

In 2000, Bush was able to barely peel off Clinton's coalition by moderating with compassionate conservatism, which was Kasich's platform.

Then, of course, there's also another school of thought that suggests 'any republican would've beaten Clinton', that camp is at least more respectable and intellectually consistent compared to the 'Cruz would lose bigly, but someone who has his near exact positions would win bigly' - but that logic in and of itself demonstrates the paradox of Rubio's candidacy, if you're an anti-Trump republican and anyone could've beaten Clinton, your focus should've been to support the Republican closest to Trump and who would therefore have the best odds of beating him in the primary, meaning Cruz...