Again, your statement "Numbers were down for both candidates in 2012" is flat out wrong. Romney got one million more votes than McCain.
The initial reports had Romney receiving a million votes less than McCain. Updated reports from wiki say Romney ended up with about a half million more votes than McCain. Exact same thing for conservatives, most reports said Romney got less than McCain. How it ended up I don’t know. I do one thing though. Republicans need to worry about getting their base to vote for them. White voters outnumber all minority groups combined. To hell with hispanic voters, a very small percentage vote anyway and to hell with black voters, who vote for sugar daddy every time we have an election. Like Reagan republicans need to concentrate on reliable white voters. It works every time. 20% of so-called Evangelicals and 50% of so-called Catholics voted for Mr. Abortion. There lies the election.