It isn't the left that would be voting for him. It is the right, and these attacks would have demoralized part of his core base. The left would still vote for Hillary no matter what derogatory thing she said about "gays."
The left yes, I agree. But there are a lot of voters out there who aren't on the left. All those married women turned off by Trump's comments, millennials who are not yet politically fully committed...those are demographics (not to mention Hispanics) where he likely would have done better than Trump. Although I agree he might have lost something on the blue collar end.
The key is that when push came to shove, how many conservative voters would have abandoned him over those issues, when the alternative was
Hillary. Eh, I guess none of this jaw-jacking will resolve it, because we'll never know.
Christie would have been worse, but I doubt Rubio would be doing better than Trump. Over at TOS they were hating on Rubio all throughout the primary. There was a *LOT* of animosity about him flipping on the Amnesty issue.
Well, that's important if you think TOS really represents a significant percentage of voters, and whether the antipathy they had for him in the primary would have extended to him in a general election contest with Hillary. Personally, I think TOS has reduced itself to a very unattractive, rather tiny corner of the electorate. Most of the people with brains have fled.
FWIW, it appears that Hillary's people wanted Trump, and feared Rubio the most.
