Appeal to new voters? Whether they like it or not, this is their base. Their strategy to push Democrats out of the South and embracing the religious right worked wonders for a spell, and now it's screwing them over bigly. Since then, they have not really reached out to new voters. Instead, they have deepened their support with one demographic while letting the others slip away. Jokes on them though - working class whites have been going batsh**t crazy for years now, especially post-Obama.
They have only themselves to blame for this mess. Maybe next time they will realize that trading long-term success for short-term electoral gains is a stupid strategy.
I mentioned the south and religion separately but in this context I consider them intertwined. Religious influence is crippling the GOP's ability to appeal to Millennials and most likely subsequent generations. How do you appeal to those people when you're forced to take uncompromising social issue positions due to the depth of religious voters in your base? There is probably a way for generic Republicans to do it, but more or less they have not found it nor have shown an overwhelming willingness to do so. The pockets of racism that come from having the south as your main base of support does not help with minorities, either.
