In an America that is becoming increasingly diverse, yet more divided, experts say the battle lines between the Democratic and Republican parties are slowly shifting.
And while race and ethnicity may not tell the whole story of this week's presidential election result, or indeed future elections, demographic shifts have reshaped the United States' pool of eligible voters.
With growth in the populations of Hispanics (people who are from, or are descendants of, Spanish speaking countries) and Latinos (people who are from, or are descendants of, Latin America - also referred to as Latinas and the gender-neutral Latinx), along with Asian Americans, these groups are forming larger parts of the electorate. Meanwhile, the share of non-Hispanic, white eligible voters, while remaining the majority, is slowly declining.
Professor Shaun Ratcliff from the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre said these shifts are making the country's south-eastern states, which have increasingly become Republican strongholds, more competitive.
"Population change happens at a snail's pace. It's not one of those things where overnight the battle lines shift, and you have a new electorate," he told SBS News.
Latinos voting at a polling station in Los Angeles. Source: Getty Images
"It's something that takes generations. But it does change things."
Just how diverse is America?
As of July 2019, the US has a population of 328.2 million, according to the - up from 308.7 million in 2010.
Of the 2019 population, 76.3 per cent of Americans ticked 'white alone', while 60.1 per cent said they were 'white alone, not Hispanic or Latino'.
The US Census Bureau does not consider Hispanic or Latino ethnicity to be a race. Hispanics were also asked in 2019 to select one or more races to define themselves. As such, those who selected 'Hispanic or Latino' made up 18.5 per cent, while 'Black or African American' and 'Asian alone' categories made up 13.4 per cent and 5.9 per cent, respectively.
Hispanics are projected to become the largest minority group in the 2020 electorate. Source: Pew Research Center/SBS News
'American Indian' and 'Alaskan Natives', as well as 'Native Hawaiians' and 'Other Pacific Islanders', made up 1.3 and 0.2 per cent of the population, while 2.8 per cent identified as being of 'two or more races'.
Professor Ratcliff said the US has been a diverse country for quite some time - notably due to its large African American population which stemmed from hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans being brought to the country from the 1600s onwards - but there have been some more recent shifts.
"In some parts of the US, Hispanics and Latinos have also been a large part of the population, particularly in south-west states like Arizona and New Mexico that were once part of Mexico. That population has grown a lot in recent decades," he said.
So, too, has the population of Asian Americans, Professor Ratcliff added. "They've probably been a bit less politically significant than Hispanics and Latinos, just because of where they have moved to. But they're still an increasingly important voter bloc."
How is diversity reflected in the people who can vote?
Between 2000 and 2018, the country's electorate grew from 193.4 million to 233.7 million, according to . Voters who were black, Asian or another race or ethnicity made up 76 per cent of that growth.
In that time, the biggest growth was among Hispanics, as a share of eligible voters across all 50 states. The share of white voters declined in every state, with 10 states experiencing double-digit drops.
Pew said such gains are particularly large in south-western states including Nevada, California and Texas, along with battleground states such as Florida and Arizona. In Florida, for example, two-in-10 eligible voters identified as Hispanic in 2018 - almost double their share in 2000.
Most of the growth in the electorate since 2000 has come from Hispanic voters. Source: Pew Research Center/SBS News
The research centre predicts a record 32 million Latinos are projected to vote in the 3 November election, accounting for about 13.3 per cent of all eligible voters. The proportion of black voters is about 30 million, or 12.5 per cent.
Asian Americans are , according to Pew, with the number doubling in the 18-year time period. More than 11 million Asian Americans will be able to vote this year, making up almost five per cent of the electorate. But it remains a smaller voter bloc than African American and Hispanic voters.
As the nation's demographics are shifting, so too are those of Congress. Of the 116th and current US Congress' 535 members (100 in the Senate and 435 in the House of Representatives), there are 131 women, 51 Latin Americans and 20 people who are either Asian American, Native American or Pacific Islander American - all of which are record highs. There are also 56 African Americans.
How could minority groups impact the election?
According to Pew, how such demographic shifts might shape electoral outcomes is "closely linked" to partisan preferences of different groups.
Black, Hispanic and Asian registered voters have historically leaned towards the Democratic Party, which maintains a "wide and long-standing advantage" among these voters, it said. But where black voters have solidly supported Democratic candidates, Hispanics were less consistent in their support over Republicans.
Professor Ratcliff said these minority groups have "become increasingly Democratic" on the whole.
"If we go back to the early 1990s, Asian Americans, for example, who were a smaller group then, were much more Republican-friendly. Hispanics and Latinos were more Republican-friendly, too. It has been the last 20 years those two groups have shifted heavily to the Democratic Party," he said.
"African Americans have been a pretty solid lock for the Democrats since the 1960s, but other minority groups have not always necessarily been as favourable."
There is of course, as Pew acknowledges, diversity within groups, sometimes depending on their country of origin. A found Hispanic eligible voters of Puerto Rican and/or Mexican descent were more likely to identify as Democratic than those of Cuban descent, who tended to lean Republican.
According to exit polls analysis from Pew, in 2016 then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton secured about two-thirds of the Latino vote, a 10 per cent drop from the cohort's support for Barack Obama in 2012.
How different Hispanic groups lean based on 2018 data. Source: Pew Research Center/SBS News
Donald Trump secured 58 per cent of voters among white, non-Hispanic voters, compared with Mrs Clinton's 37 per cent. He only secured eight per cent of African American voters, which was similar to his Republican predecessor, Mitt Romney, in 2012.
Professor Ratcliff said the Democratic Party's consistent strength with minority groups has helped to offset their weakness among white voters.
"That's important because these groups are growing faster than the white population, on average. As the US population is becoming more diverse, the percentage of the electorate that is white is slowly shrinking," he said.
"It's not going to be tomorrow when all of a sudden white voters are a minority; they were still 70 per cent of the electorate last election. But it's still getting a bit smaller every year, and particularly in some key states like Florida."
A future America: California vs. Texas
For Professor Radcliff, the next few decades will be decided based on whether American politics follows the path of California or Texas.
"California is a good example of what could be one possible future for the US," he said.
"People tend to think of it as being this liberal, left-leaning state that has always elected Democrats, but we forget that Republicans won the three elections in the 1980s," he said. "California used to be a great place for Republicans."
That was until 2016, when Mrs Clinton won Orange County in a first for the Democrats since 1936. One of the reasons for that was the state's growing Hispanic and Asian American communities, Professor Radcliff said, and its hard line on illegal immigration.
Voting in Inglewood, California. Source: Getty Images
"As a whole, Republicans get 35 per cent of the vote in California, because of the favourable demographics in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles, which are great for the Democrats," he said.
"I'm not saying the whole country will turn into California. But as you become increasingly diverse, either the Republican Party appeals to these minority voters and wins them over, or it doubles down on its support amongst white voters."
The other future for America, Professor Radcliff says, is what is evolving in Texas.
"Almost the opposite has happened in Texas. Whereas California became more Democratic, Texas became more Republican as it became more diverse," he said.
The Democratic Party headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Source: Hulton Archive
"The Republicans did that by winning 70 per cent of the white vote in Texas. That has helped them lock the state down for the last 20 years. But even that is starting to erode."
But there's more to it than just demographic change; states can change, too, Professor Radcliff said.
"Even in Texas now, winning a large proportion of white voters isn't enough as that part of the electorate shrinks."
"There's no guarantee they can hold onto white voters forever, as younger voters grow up in a different America to their parents."
