Over 31 percent of voters in the US on Election Day, 2016, will be nonwhite, and the white share of eligible voters has fallen from 71 to 69 percent in just four years, new research has revealed.

The figures, released by the Pew Research Center, reveal the extent of the challenge that a candidate like Donald Trump needs to overcome even if he should win the Republican Party nomination.

Most of the increase is due to the dramatic growth in Hispanic voters, driven by legal and illegal immigration going back two decades, or, as the Pew Center report says, the increase is “due to strong growth among Hispanic eligible voters, in particular US-born youth.”

The Pew Center report goes on to illustrate the critical danger posed to the future existence of the US as a First World nation by legal immigration.

It says that its “analysis of changes in the nation’s eligible voting population—US citizens ages 18 and older—offers a preview of profound US demographic shifts that are projected to continue for decades to come.”

The report points out that while the 156 million non-Hispanic white eligible voters in 2016 far outnumber the 70 million eligible nonwhite voters, their growth lags behind that of the nonwhites.

“As a result, the non-Hispanic white share of the electorate has fallen from 71 percent in 2012 to 69 percent in 2016,” the report says.

In real terms, the figures mean that there are now 10.7 million more eligible voters today than there were in 2012—and two-thirds of that growth has come from nonwhites.

Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and other nonwhites had a net increase of 7.5 million eligible voters, compared with a net increase of 3.2 million among non-Hispanic white eligible voters.

The growth among non-Hispanic white eligible voters has been slower than among racial or ethnic minorities in large part because they are overrepresented in deaths due to an aging population.

Non-Hispanic whites make up 69 percent of US eligible voters, but accounted for 76 percent of all eligible voters who died (6.6 million of 8.7 million) between 2012 and 2016.

“Another reason growth has lagged among non-Hispanic white eligible voters is that they’re underrepresented among young people born in the US who turn 18—the group most responsible for the nation’s growth in eligible voters,” the report continued.

Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 57 percent of the 16 million new eligible voters who turned 18 between 2012 and 2016. By comparison, the nonwhites accounted for 43 percent of new eligible voters born in the US who turned 18.

The report also revealed that the growth in the Asian-origin voter base was “unlike other groups” because it had largely come from naturalizations—that is, new immigrants who had become US citizens.

Since 2012, 60 percent of new Asian eligible voters have gained the right to vote by this means. By comparison, 26 percent of new Hispanic eligible voters came from naturalizations during this time.

These figures present a huge challenge to any candidate seeking office who does not have significant support amongst this nonwhite voting bloc, because they, unlike whites, have always tended to vote racially.

A candidate like Trump, for example, has to win over 65 percent of the white vote to even stand a chance of winning an election, whereas a candidate like Barack Obama can win an election with only minority white support.

The only potential caveat to this analysis is that there has been a traditionally lower voter turnout rate among Hispanics and Asians. In the 2012 presidential election, 64 percent of non-Hispanic white eligible voters cast ballots, as did 67 percent of black eligible voters.

By comparison, the voter turnout rate was 48 percent among Hispanics and 47 percent among Asians.

The bottom line is however clear: the presidential election of 2016 is the last in which white Americans will be able to democratically determine the future of the nation their forefathers founded.

Unless the immigration issue—both legal and illegal—is not addressed immediately, the nonwhite population growth will overwhelm white America within a very short space of time.