Democrats make inroads into changing regions

Since moving to Arizona 15 years ago, Nieves Lorenzo watched as Hispanics grew in numbers but only haltingly asserted themselves as a political force. Then came Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy.

“He has woken up the sleeping giant,” Lorenzo, a native of Venezuela, said as she stood in a local Democratic campaign headquarters here in the desert between Phoenix and Tucson.

By driving women, educated white voters and, most significantly, growing blocs of minorities away from the Republican Party, Trump has hastened social and political changes already well underway in two key regions, the interior West and the upper South, that not long ago tilted to the right.

Now, even as Hillary Clinton contends with inflamed Democratic anxiety over renewed scrutiny of her private email server, these once-red areas are providing an unexpected firewall for her campaign.

Democrats are already strongly confident of victory in three of them — Colorado, Nevada and Virginia — and believe that a fourth, North Carolina, is likely to break their way as well. Added to the party’s daunting advantage in the Electoral College, these states have impeded Trump’s path to amassing the 270 electoral votes needed to win, limiting his ability to exploit Clinton’s late vulnerabilities and forcing him to scrounge for unlikely support in solidly Democratic places like Michigan and New Mexico.

The shift is stark enough that Democrats are pressing for victory in Arizona and Georgia, two historically Republican strongholds, while Clinton’s standing has wobbled inOhio and Iowa. Looking beyond the election, Republicans fear that Trump’s geographic dilemma could offer a grim glimpse of their party’s future: Unless they can win back constituencies he has driven away.