Defeated Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has blamed his election loss on "gifts" President Barack Obama gave minorities.

Mr Obama gave "a lot of stuff" to African Americans, Hispanics and young voters - groups key to his victory, Mr Romney told donors on Wednesday.

Mr Romney's comments were his first since his election concession speech.

He lost the 6 November election by a wider margin than many expected, failing to win key swing states.

Mr Obama secured re-election with 332 electoral votes to Mr Romney's 206, with battlegrounds including Ohio, Virginia and Florida all falling to the president.

'Troubled by the past'
Mr Romney's remarks come as Republican state governors gather in Las Vegas, Nevada, to discuss the party's route forward.

"The Obama campaign was following the old playbook of giving a lot of stuff to groups that they hoped they would get to vote for them... specifically the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people," Mr Romney is reported to have said.

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The former Massachusetts governor noted that Mr Obama's 2010 Affordable Care Act was a "huge plus" for some voting groups.

"With regards to African-American voters, 'Obamacare' was a huge plus - and was highly motivational," he said in the call.

"You can imagine for somebody making $25, or $30, or $35,000 [£22,000] a year, being told you're now going to get free healthcare, particularly if you don't have it, getting free healthcare worth, what, $10,000 a family, in perpetuity, I mean this is huge," he added.

Mr Romney also noted that allowing people under 26 years old to stay on their parents' insurance plans had been very popular with young people, and offering what he called an "amnesty" to the children of illegal immigrants appealed to Hispanic voters.

Um.. yeah. How exactly does giving gifts to minorities end up with you having a majority of the votes?

It appears Romney's maths hasn't improved since the election.

The man hasn't even the wit to hide the fact he's a sociopath. Even worse, there's clearly voters who think that's a good thing!

Those grapes are a bit sour......

Sour? They are off the scale. He obviously thought that he had bought the presidency and I suspect that even more voter suppression will be the outcome for the next few elections.

If Obama did win through tipping his hat to minority groups, at least he had the nous to realise that they were still voting American citizens. Romney seems to think that middle-aged middle class conservatives are the only interest group in the country.

Well that goes down to how they are funded. By old rich white 1%ers. Everyone else is irrelevant.

if you can't appeal to the majority, you're going to lose. That's about the most fundamental truth that exists in representative democracy.

Are they really that dumb that they don't see that?