In '84 when Reagan took every state comfortably, except for Mondale's home state of Minnesota, whichwas decided by less than a percent (I think), there was a lot of talk about the death of the democratic Party and what they needed to do. The conventional perspective of the party at that time was that it was a small, fragmented coalition of unions, minorities, and special interests without a central unifying theme. Back then 88% of the electorate was white.

I think the Republicans have obvious problems connecting with the young, minorities and women (particularly single women), but their most glaring problem is that their agenda seems to be driven by the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, evangelicals, FoxNews and Trump. While Romney was not exactly representative of this mindset, he still pandered to the far right and could not escape its influence.