All voting in multi-cultural states is ultimately demographic. Republicans represent "Whites" (e.g. 92% of Trump voters in the 2016 election were White).
As long as there are conservative Whites living in California in sufficient numbers, there will be a Republican Party to represent their interests—that's how a "representative democracy" is supposed to work. Republicans lose when there aren't enough Whites with conservative beliefs to elect them, and win when there are enough.
Republicans today remind me of the Confederacy in a lot of ways, and I expect them to fade away over time in a similar manner. The US can no longer support an effectively White-only national party.
> All voting in multi-cultural states is ultimately demographic
I think this is a gross oversimplification (and demonstrably false if you look at some other countries), but OK, for the sake of argument let's say that one party represents one core demographic. Then one of these is true: 1) their core demographic is a majority or 2) they can attract enough share from other demographics without alienating their core demographic. or 3) they are, and should be a minority party.
I think a big part of the problem is that the US is a big and diverse place politically, so having parties with a huge national identity like the donkey and elephant is always problematic at the edges. R's simply have to attract more minority voters, more women voters, more young voters etc.
> I expect them to fade away over time in a similar manner. The US can no longer support an effectively White-only national party.
Well they will adapt or fade away. That of course goes for any political party, anywhere. A party can't please everyone. But it also can't perfectly please only a tiny core base. They need to broaden their support. But are they capable of that? It's like they think that "Attract voters from demographic X" means "Tell people in demographic X how good Republican policy is".
What it should mean is actually change policy to attract that demographic.
Now: this state discussion misses a big point with the US political climate and it's that the divide isn't really between states, nor mostly between demographics like age or ethnicity, but between city and rural. I honestly don't quite understand why that divide is so pronounced.