Haven't read in detail your citation, although I'll note claiming a Republican operative said "We have three major voter suppression operations underway" is ludicrous on its face, "suppression" is not a word you're going to use when talking to hostile MSM reporters, but lower turnout was baked into the cake if for no other reason than Obama was not on the ticket.

For that matter, compare Democratic votes in all three elections, looks to me like you can draw a fairly straight line 2008 to 2016.

But if you drop the loaded word suppression, yes, of course part of the game is to discourage the people who might vote for your opponent, the biggest change is that the language used today is by comparison quite tame.