“Everyone is in agreement that the old Bush model has to be thrown out,” said Todd of the vaunted “72-hour plan” of 2004. “We have to stop accepting being behind in the early vote. We have to treat [the] early vote like it’s the first half of the football game.”

“A lot of people said [the Obama campaign] couldn’t duplicate what they did in ’08. They did it,” said Republican Party of Florida Chairman Lenny Curry, who also called it essential for Republicans to study the Obama campaign’s turnout efforts and “figure out a way to be relevant to diverse communities.”

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Yet Republicans have long called it an imperative to improve their position among minority voters, to little avail. George W. Bush won 44 percent of the Latino and Asian-American vote in his 2004 reelection campaign, but Democrats have otherwise coasted with those groups.

Portman said that if they didn’t do so now, they simply wouldn’t get to 50-plus-one.

“We need to reach beyond our base without sacrificing our core values, and it can be done,” he said. “I believe there is a common sense conservative majority in swing states like Ohio, but it's a more diverse group than the GOP base. To get less than 30 percent of the Hispanic vote and less than eight percent of the African-American vote shows the potential we have to reach out with an inclusive message of fiscal conservatism, pro-growth policies to help small business and a renewed emphasis on the opportunity society.

But some in the party are already pondering immediate steps they can take on the symbolic front. One longtime GOP hand in Washington floated Wednesday the idea of a high-profile party post for Mia Love, the African-American woman who won significant buzz this election but lost her House race in Utah.

Yet short of cutting a deal on immigration that much of the party would oppose bitterly — or nominating a Latino candidate for president — Republicans are short on tangible plans for expanding their demographic reach.

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, pointed to the Senate in general and Rubio individually as the party’s promising actors on immigration.

“An immigration deal is something the Senate needs to take the lead on. You’ve got Rubio there to take the lead on it. You’re not going to get the House to do it until they know the Senate is serious,” Cole said. “You can’t get the votes you need in the House if they think they’re going to go out and bleed and die as the Senate sits and twiddles their thumbs.”