Top Romney strategist: Failure to reach out to women, Hispanics was our biggest mistake

“I’m a bit baffled at why people look at the Obama campaign and say they won because of their ground game on face value when they turned out more voters four years ago than they did this time. I would give them more credit for their message in those states.”

Stevens also defended Romney’s remark that the president had won because he gave “gifts” to key demographic groups ahead of the election, and dismissed the idea that Romney saw the election as a fight between haves and have-nots.

“I think what he was saying was there was an effort that the incumbent used as may other incumbents have used to reach out to constituents. It’s something we’ve seen in politics going back for a long time. They did it effectively and they had certain groups they wanted to do well with and they did well with,” said Stevens. “We had certain groups we wanted to do well with and would have wanted to have done better with them.”