I think these are all excuses!
The real failure is the failure to adapt to the tactics that it takes to win in the age of mail-in ballots. I don’t like mail-in ballots, I think it’s wrong invites cheating but there it is. People love it because it’s easy. Rat’s being Santa Claus with the responsibility of voting.
Yes, it is a failure of leadership but it’s not the failure every complains about. It’s a failure to understand that voting and election rules\attitudes culture have changed. This failure of understanding starts at the top of the GOP and goes down through ALL THE STATE GOP LEADERSHIP!
We don’t do it because it seems quasi-unethical\illegal. It also goes against our grain because the vote harvesting necessary to capture the mail-in ballots seems so paternalistic. It feels to us disrespectful of the individual initiative and his\her right to decide on his\her own. It also requires participation in the party over and above bitching and moaning and imagining ties to foreign interference.
They do it, they win. They even provide us with easy explanations through the MSM and picked up by our own media to be a balm to our conscience.
They started doing this in SoCal where ballot harvesting is legal and lo and behold R’s won some ( don’t ask me to remember where I read it a few years ago).