What was a bigger factor that hindered the Republican's presidential aspirations - religious agenda or lack of support from minorities?

The "Bradley effect" was prevalent here - many religious conservatives ultimately did not come out for Romney due to reservations that Mormonism is not Christianity - but did not report this to pollsters.

Mormonism isn't the cause of Romney's defeat, the larger religious agenda by the Republican party is.

Young and minority voters care more about the social issues that affect their daily lives vs. tax rates fluctuating upon the rich. Marijuana legalization, gay marriage, immigration reform, and other social issues that the right conservative Christians are against is harming the Republican parties chances at reclaiming majority.

The white Evangelical population is diminishing and as such people are less likely to vote by religion and more with what it is right for themselves. Not government handouts (as the right continues to say), but attempting to remove laws that hamper their freedom.

Ok, this issue is quite a complex one. As a conservative I always subscribed to the "Anyone but Obama" theory when it came to Presidential politics, and in turn thought that most others did as well. When CNN issued their Dem +11 sample size polling date I looked at that as just the left wing liberal media doing what they do best, that is to say trying to influence voters. I was wrong. It turned out that CNN was right.

GOP turnout was 11% less than it was in 2008, which I found astounding. According to recent research that 11% (roughly 4 million votes) is surprisiingly not composed of minorities but rather Evangelicals and hardcore Conservatives who are sick of donating to the GOP only to have them nominate "moderate" candidates. Had those voters showed up on tuesday then the election may have gone in a different direction (popular votewise at least).

Now, the minority vote. The larger issue is not, in my opinion, how does the GOP reach the minority vote in so much as it about that the fact that most minorities seem to live off the public dime. Whether in the form if unemployment, welfare recipients, food stamps, etc, most public data illustrates this to be an inconvienent fact. Those that are collecting some form of a handout typically gravitate to left as the conservative position is more about helping those in need get back to work and not supporting policies designed at keeping those on entitlements on the respective entitlements. It is this position which as always had me in awe of the cuban community as most cuban born immigrants have lived under and seen the oppression and the misery brought about by big government regimes and have therefore gravitated towards the conservative movement.

In 2004, Bush received 40% of the hispanic vote. This percentage dropped to 27% for this election (http://www.voxxi.com/hispanic-voters-2012-election-obama/). With 56M hispanics in the US, 24M eligible to vote, and 11M doing so (10% of all voters are hispanic), that 13% difference equals 1.4M that went from the Republicans to the Democrats (so 2.8M swing).

With stronger support from the hispanics Republican's might've taken Virginia, Florida and Colorado at the very least (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-08/hispanic-political-clout-seen-in-2012-election-and-beyond.html).

Asian voters voted 73% vs. 26% in favor of the Democrats (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-08/asian-voters-send-a-message-to-republicans.html), despite the fact that they are the highest earning group in the US.