But despite that steady growth in the minority population, Democrats have seen vanishingly few reasons for optimism in each of these states lately. By almost all measures, the Republican grip on all three has only tightened. Since 1992, the sole Democratic presidential nominee to carry any of these states was Bill Clinton, who narrowly captured Georgia in 1992 and Arizona in 1996. In each case, Clinton managed only a plurality victory made possible because independent candidate Ross Perot splintered the vote. In fact, in all three states, no Democratic presidential nominee since 1984 has amassed more than the 46.9 percent of the vote that President Obama attracted in Georgia in 2008. Since 1992, Democratic presidential nominees have averaged 44.5 percent of the vote in Georgia, 43.7 percent in Arizona, and only 40.4 percent in Texas. In 2012, Obama won a smaller share of the vote in all three than he did in 2008.

The Republican position is, if anything, stronger down the ballot. The GOP holds all six U.S. Senate seats from the three states and in 2014 turned away a well-funded challenge from Democrat Michelle Nunn in Georgia while discouraging a serious opponent to Republican Sen. John Cornyn in Texas. In 2014 as well, Republicans comfortably defeated highly touted Democratic candidates to retain the governorship in all three states. Republicans hold a 5-4 majority in Arizona's U.S. House seats and advantages of greater than 2-to1 in both Texas and Georgia. The GOP also controls both state legislative chambers in each state.

Arizona and Georgia, with their high-flying housing markets, were hit especially hard in the crash of 2008, while Texas weathered the storm better. But all three states are now thriving. Over the past year, Texas has created more jobs than any other state; Georgia ranks fifth and Arizona eighth. Since 2000, population growth in all three states has been propulsive: Arizona has increased its population by 29 percent (third among states), Texas by almost 27 percent (fourth), and Georgia 22 percent (ninth).

Despite all the GOP advantages in these states, the dominant role of minorities in fueling their population growth ensures continuing Democratic interest. What follows is a look at the states' evolving demographic and political dynamics using data exclusively provided to Next America by the States of Change: Demographics and Democracy Project, a joint effort of the American Enterprise Institute and Center for American Progress in collaboration with demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution. (For more on the project, the data sources used, and the basis of its projections, click here.)

RACE

Texas: No state has a wider gap between demographic possibility and political reality. Even as unstinting racial change has carried Texas to the brink of a majority-minority electorate, Republicans have solidified their hold over the state's politics. The 2014 election that Democrats hoped would demonstrate the awakening power of a Democratic coalition fueled by increasing diversity instead underscored just how far the party must travel to reestablish its competitiveness in a state it ruled unchallenged for a century after the Civil War.