Frank Rich (remember him?) thinks the status quo is likely to persist:
These days, the GOP has no new Reagan as yet waiting in the wings. It faces a demographic cliff that may take far longer than two years to scale, no matter how many blind mountain climbers deliver pep talks—especially if Republicans in Congress can’t even mobilize on immigration reform this year. But the party controls far more of American governance, federal and local, than it did after Goldwater’s defeat … A cosmetic face-lift would fool no one. Its current leaders are more faithful than ever—more faithful than Nixon, Ford, and both George Bushes ever were—to the principles laid down by Goldwater and Reagan. In the end, the party’s best bet may be not to do something but just stand there until history cycles back to it once more.
PM Carpenter counters:
The least convincing aspect of Rich’s scenario is that in the immediate post-Goldwater era the GOP had essentially the same American electorate to cycle back to in four years or 16. Today’s GOP won’t. By 2020, even Texas will have turned a rather deep purple through browning, and other one-time GOP strongholds, such as Virginia and even Georgia, are bluing, demographically, by the day.
And it does seem to me that on immigration reform and marriage equality, there has been an adjustment to public opinion and demographic reality.
The Dish 