Back at the governor’s conference, GOP pollster Frank Luntz, 46, warned that not only were the party’s problems real and profound, but they were urgent, too.

Noting that redistricting—the decennial process where the party that controls the state can redraw voting districts to consolidate their own power—was coming up after the 2010 census, Luntz made the case that the GOP is in “deep trouble.”

Republicans, though, now control just 21 governorships, and Democrats rule over nearly twice as many state legislatures, and every one in the east north of Virginia except for Pennsylvania.

“Republicans got destroyed in 1964, they had three election cycles to catch up,” he said. “We got destroyed in 1974, we have three election cycles to catch up. They’ve been destroyed in 2006 and 2008—they have only one election cycle left.”