Speaking to POLITICO's MJ Lee in his new capacity as head of the Financial Services Roundtable, the former Minnesota governor and 2012 presidential candidate says his party has some work to do:

[The] onetime co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign said Republicans need to work to appeal to a more diverse group of voters.

“Campaigns and elections are markets,” Pawlenty said in an interview. “You have voters coming forward and registering their preferences in a political marketplace, and the Republican Party just lost market share.” ...

In a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO on Thursday, Pawlenty reflected on the lessons for the GOP in the aftermath of an election that gave President Barack Obama another four years in the White House and expanded the Democratic majority in the Senate.

“Some of the things that I think the Republican Party is facing as a challenge is the need to do better with Hispanic and Latino voters, the need to do better with female voters, the need to do better with blue-collar voters who are folks who are not just from higher income levels but people in middle- and lower-modest income backgrounds,” he said in an interview at the Roundtable’s offices in downtown Washington.

Pawlenty urged Republicans to recognize the “warning signs on the dashboard” that suggest the market is shifting away from their party and to focus on finding ways to attract the demographic groups that chose to support the president.

“Losing is a pretty good lesson, and I’m pretty confident that they’ll, in the wake of this loss, do the things it takes to try to improve,” he said.