America is in the middle of an extreme demographic shift
The Pew Research Center projects that there will be 441 million by 2065.
And by the time the country gets there, our electorate will have changed in a profound way: In 50 years, no ethnic group will be a majority.
While whites will still make up the greatest percentage of the population, they'll no longer be the majority, dropping from 62% to 46%. The Hispanic percentage will rise from 18% to 24%, and the black population from 12% to 14%.
The biggest population percentage increase - and one of the major demographic stories in America this century - is that the Asian population is rising from 6% to 14%, mainly due to the marked increase in Asian immigrants, climbing from 26% to 38% of the foreign-born population. Intriguingly, Asian immigrants are the best-educated of all groups, with 57% having completed college.
As Pew editor D'Vera Cohn notes, one of the main drivers of America's diversification is the increase in "second-generation" kids, meaning that they have at least one foreign-born parent:
"This group's median age is 19, meaning half are younger and half are older," Cohn says. "But by 2065, their median age will be 36, according to the new projections." So they'll soon be integrated into the workforce and voting electorate like never before.
While it's hard to predict how these population shifts are going to shape American culture and politics, we can be sure of one thing: the Mainland is about to get a lot more like Hawaii.