To the point, the Republican party and it's leaders alienated and attacked the largest growing segment of the population, the Hispanic comunity.
From the Huffington Post:
In every state polled by impreMedia and Latino Decisions, immigration was a major factor in the decision-making process. Most Latino voters support the president's policies on the issue, even if he has not succeeded in enacting many of them.
The Dream Act, a bill to help undocumented young people, has support from a strong majority of Latino voters, and many said they became more enthusiastic about the president after his June announcement he would no longer deport some young undocumented immigrants who fit the same general requirements.
The impreMedia and Latino Decisions poll shows a pretty clear indicator of why many of those supporters may care strongly about immigration reform: 60 percent of those polled said they knew an undocumented immigrant.
Romney, on the other hand, took a hardline stance on immigration in the GOP primary and was never quite able to shake it as he moved into the general election. His calls for "self-deportation" -- making life difficult for undocumented immigrants until they left -- and for vetoing the Dream Act drew ire from immigration activists and Latino groups in general.
His party had enacted a string of anti-undocumented immigrant legislation in Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana and Alabama, and had helped in the Senate to defeat the Dream Act in 2010.
An impreMedia-Latino Decisions poll released Tuesday as an alternative to exit polls found Obama had won 75 percent of Latino voters nationwide, while exit polls found him with around 70 percent Latino support, with figures likely to change throughout the night as tallies come in from the West Coast.
"Republicans are going to have to have a real serious conversation with themselves," said Eliseo Medina, an immigration reform advocate and secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. "They need to repair their relationship with our community. ... They can wave goodbye to us if they don't get right with Latinos."
The country is becoming more diverse in general, with a growing Latino population and an even faster-growing Asian population. Those demographic changes will spell trouble for the Republican Party if it remains on in its current trajectory, among Latino voters in particular.