President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election shocked many Republicans—most famously, Karl Rove—and prompted a reckoning within in the party. Erick Erickson, the conservative blogger and radio host, wrote, "The Romney campaign to the hispanic community was atrocious and, frankly, the fastest growing demographic in America isn’t going to vote for a party that sounds like that party hates brown people." Sean Hannity and Rupert Murdoch both came out in favor of immigration reform. “Look at the last election,” Senator John McCain said on ABC. “We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours for a variety of reasons, and we’ve got to understand that.”

The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, commissioned a post-election autopsy titled the "Growth & Opportunity Project." "We are not a policy committee,” the report read, “but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, must be to embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only."

All of that post-election hand-wriging was for naught. In the 25 months since the RNC report, the Republican Party has indeed changed in significant ways—but not in the direction that its leaders and strategists had urged. Instead of passing immigration reform and adopting policies that appeal to a broad swath of constituencies, the party has become more hostile to undocumented immigrants and doubled down on unpopular policies that disproportionately benefit the rich. Rather than moderate its positions, the GOP has moved even further right, resulting in a 2016 presidential field that is far more conservative than three years ago.

No candidate has embodied the GOP’s attempt to adopt a more appealing immigration policy than Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who announced his presidential bid on April 13. After the 2012 election, Rubio, a young Cuban-American from Miami, was immediately considered a favorite for the 2016 nomination. But his role in crafting the 2013 Senate immigration bill, which included a pathway to citizenship, cost him support among the conservative base. His support in Republican primary polls, which was above 30 percent after Obama’s re-election, fell below 10 percent and hasn’t recovered.

Rubio has since reversed his position on immigration reform. He now supports a piecemeal solution that focuses on border security and allows undocumented immigrants to apply for temporary non-immigrant status after undergoing a background test, learning English, and paying a fee. To be fair, this is better than Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” position. But it is a step backwards from his support for the original Senate immigration bill.