We do have identity politics, but that identity means something different in different parts of the country. But on the other side of it, even though the country may be less than 70 percent white in terms of their voters, not the case for Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - and I think there is the rub. And Barack Obama made that happen in North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and so forth. And when we look at the Sunbelt now, we see a lot of those Sunbelt states in democratic - within reach of Democrats. We're becoming more racially diverse, and the white educated population's important in what's going on, and we see both of this - people identifying with all of those groups - Hispanics, blacks, Asians and sort of college whites.Д«ut the other piece of this is that the country is shifting at different paces in different ways. I mean, I think, you know, what Domenico and Asma had said are both two things that are very important.

Generally people have been talking about minority groups when they use that term, but I wondered, you know, is that still a relevant and useful way to look at this election? Is this election really about identity?ДЇREY: Well, to some degree it is.

I mean, we've heard this term used in the past. I'm particularly interested in this whole question of identity politics. But, Bill Frey, I'd love to hear from you on this as well. MARTIN: I want to dig into a couple of different demographic groups in just a minute. There is just a much larger percentage of people getting a college degree, and that's particularly the case when you look at younger voters, millennials. If you look then at the 2012 election, I believe they were only about a third of all the voters who cast their ballots in 2012, so it is a shrinking population. Right? And if you look at 1980, you'll see that white working class made up about two-thirds of the electorate. We've been hearing so much this election cycle about white working-class voters. The one other thing that I think is really interesting about the way the electorate looks now is that it's just much more highly educated than it has been. MARTIN: Asma, do you want to add something to this?ДЄSMA KHALID, BYLINE: Yeah. And by 2044, no racial group will be a majority in this country. By 2020, by the next presidential election, non-whites will be a majority of all children. Think about the fact that a majority of kindergartners are now non-white.

This time around, it could be at or below 70 percent or thereabouts for the first time in American history, and that has had profound effects on our politics. Eighty-nine percent of all voters were white. You know, consider in 1976, the white vote was 89 percent. MONTANARO: I mean, the first thing to think about is the fact that the white vote has been on a steady decline over the past generation. But for people who aren't, is there a data point that you think people need to know to understand where the country is and where it's going? MARTIN: So, Domenico, let's start with you because as journalists we spend a lot of time talking about these issues. Thank you all so much for joining us for this. That's a research institute here in Washington, D.C. He's a demographer at the Brookings Institution. Also with us is NPR's political editor Domenico Montanaro. So we're joined now in studio by NPR's Asma Khalid who spent this election season studying the intersection of demographics and politics. There's been a lot of study of the demographics this year that could decide this election and a lot of money being spent targeting voters who could tip the vote.

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