One reason California didn't follow national trends on Tuesday? Latinos.

Driving much of the success — and distancing the state from the national GOP tide, according to exit polls — was a surge in Latino voters. They made up 22% of the California voter pool, a record tally that mortally wounded many Republicans. Latinos were more likely than other voters to say it was the governor's race that impelled them to vote, and they sided more than 2 to 1 with Democrat Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman, the Republican whose campaign had been embroiled in a controversy over illegal immigration. Once at the polls, they voted for other Democrats as well.

Jerry Brown won Latinos 73-18 in the governor's race.

In Colorado, Sen. Michael Bennet survived his first election by less than 10,000 votes. And the state's growing Latino population (now at 12 percent of all voters) provided the margin.

Eighty-one percent of Latino voters in Colorado voted for Michael Bennet. Split the Latino vote down the middle between Bennet and Republican Ken Buck and Buck wins easily. Even if Buck had only received 30 percent of the Latino vote, he would have won the election. As it was, Buck barely out-polled gubernatorial candidate and anti-immigration hardliner Tom Tancredo among Hispanics.

In Nevada, Sen. Harry Reid was much maligned by critics for starkly stating that "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican." Yet by starkly laying out the stakes, Reid cleaned up with Latinos. First of all, he kept their turnout stead -- Latinos were 15 percent of the electorate in 2008 and in 2010. That in itself was a remarkable achievement, given that in most of the country, non-whites saw steep dropoffs in turnout. Perhaps Sharrrrron Angle's openly racist campaign wasn't a great idea, as Jon Ralston notes:

So many Hispanics turned out that the numbers defied the most optimistic estimates of the Reid folks. Even the Asian-looking ones must have gone to the polls. Hispanics made up about the same percentage of the electorate as they did in 2008, according to preliminary analysis and exit polls — 15 percent. Angle took a calculated — and, yes, shameful — risk by airing ads that were decried as racist and set off waves of revulsion in the Hispanic community. She hoped to get independent votes, but she never counted on dramatically improving Hispanic turnout. A fitting reward, I’d say.

Even in Arizona, Latinos are wising up. In 2004, John McCain got 74 percent of the Latino vote against marginal opposition. In 2010, McCain got 40 percent, against equally marginal opposition. In the governor's race, Latinos gave victorious GOP governor Jan Brewer just 28 percent of the vote. All of that after consistently giving Arizona Republicans 40% of the vote over the years.

Given demographic trends, the GOP won't be able to win in the future in these key western states without being competitive with Latinos. In 2010, the GOP doubled down on their Latino hate, and Latinos are finally starting to fight back at the ballot box.

The sleeping giant is awake.