When then-RNC chair Reince Priebus unveiled the report in 2013, he was frank: things had to change.

"If there's one message I want everyone to take away from here, it's this: we know that we have problems, we've identified them, and we're implementing solutions to fix them," he said.

Today, one of the autopsy's five authors thinks the fixes didn't work. Former Republican strategist Sally Bradshaw, who has since left politics and the party, calls the report "obviously a failure."

She declined to speak to NPR, but in an email she added, "My hope is that Trump will lose in November, Republicans will lose the Senate, and the GOP will be forced to rebuild with conservatives focused on the power of ideas."

The party is indeed in danger of losing power as a consequence of not having followed the autopsy's recommendations, according to Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

"For the most part, the Republican Party has done the opposite of what was recommended in the 2013 autopsy," he said. "That's part of the reason why so many rapidly changing demographic states are now in play for the Democrats that used to be solidly Republican -- states like Arizona and Texas and Georgia and North Carolina."

Trump found short-term success, he says, but at a cost, as America's electorate grows more diverse with every passing year.

"For the Republican Party to be successful in the long run. It's going to have to adapt to a changing America, not react against it," he added.