JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Adaora live in Atlanta, Georgia. We're seeing in Colorado, a little bit of what you were talking about there in Atlanta, that the extensive early voting has maybe taken some of the pressure off today.

ADAORA UDOJI:

Yes, and they're hopeful that that's the case. But again, everyone's walking in unchartered water. There's no sense of exactly how big the turnout is going to be. You ask people for numbers or percentages. and they're just pulling numbers out of the air. They just don't have a sense of exactly what that's going to be or how long it's going to take, John, to actually start counting the votes when the polls close, 'cause they cannot start - counting any votes until the polls close.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

All right. Joining us now is Ruy Te —Teixeira, who's a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress Fund, joining us from Silver Spring, Maryland. Rudy, thanks for joining us.

RUDY TEIXEIRA:

Glad to be here.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Now, there are a lot of turnout questions that we've been focusing on here. But I'm wondering if beneath those turnout questions, there are demographic issues and forces at work that may be a little more permanent than the passion for some voter or the passion for some ballot measure.

RUDY TEIXEIRA:

Absolutely, absolutely there are.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

What are they?

RUDY TEIXEIRA:

Well, there's a lot of them but I think some of the ones that are most important and prominent in this election is, for example, the minority vote, that the minority vote has gathered strength in most states in the United States, but particularly in fast-growing states. For example in the Southwest and in Florida and that's helping transform those states.

I mean we could have upwards of a quarter of voters be minorities this time and we have a particularly high vote probably from Hispanics who, despite the fact that George Bush won them — only lost them by 19 points in 2004, it looks like that Republican deficit this time, it will be twice that. The Democrats will probably win Hispanics by between 35 and 40 points.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Now, minority numbers have been rising for a while in America, but we're really going to see the impact of that because the turnout is so high. True?

RUDY TEIXEIRA:

It's both, it's both things. It's both a deter — the populations are growing really extraordinarily fast and that we should have relatively high turnout in this election. And there's — there's other parts of the equation, as well.

I mean one — another thing that's happened is that more highly educated voters are perhaps realigning toward the Democrats, based on polling data that I've been seeing going into this election. It looks like for the first time in a long time, white college graduates will actually vote Democratic this time.

And they were — there was a Democratic deficit of 11 points in 2004 and it looks like that Obama will probably carry them by between 3 and 5 points. So that translates into strength in a lot of growing suburban areas and big metropolitan areas.

This is, this is part of what's pushing a lot of these states like Florida and Colorado and Nevada and lots of other places towards the Democrats. You see this, this kind of mix of increasing numbers of white college graduates and minorities transforming these, these more densely-populated areas in the suburbs around them in a lot of key states and a lot of swing states and, and that's going to be a big factor underlying Obama's probable victory.

ADAORA UDOJI:

And Rudy, when you take a look at the map, which states do you think are most likely to flip as a result of all those factors you just laid out?

RUDY TEIXEIRA:

Well, I think the states that are likely to flip — it looks like we're gonna get Colorado and Nevada in the Southwest, New Mexico too, though it's not as fast-growing a state but still significant. Virginia I think is very highly probable to go to the Democrats this time, and that's a state of, of many, many demographic changes, particularly in the northern Virginia area.

I think it's probable that Florida will go to the Democrats in this election and everybody knows about the kinds of changes that are, that are taking place in Florida. Then you'll, you'll see some of the slow-growth states flip too probably, like Ohio.

But that's a somewhat different question though there are important trends there, especially in say the Columbus metro area, which is the more dynamic growing sector of the — of Ohio in which in this election will probably be pro-Democratic.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Yeah, the Columbus area is proving to be decisive in Ohio and we saw hints of that in 2004. Let me focus on the South for a moment, extending on Adaora's question. More than 40 years ago, Lyndon Johnson predicted that the Democrats would lose the South because of the Civil Rights Act, and they eventually did and it stayed that way until 2008.

Are we going to see tomorrow, the signs that perhaps the South is no longer a reliable Republican stronghold?

RUDY TEIXEIRA:

I think so, I think so. And certainly as — as a block. I think there will be a number of states obviously that will stay right where they are. But I think we'll see Florida and Virginia, which I think of as sort of the bookends of the New South and the title of a Brookings Report I, I recently did. I think we'll see them flip.

I think North Carolina will be very, very close. And remember, this is a state that George Bush won by 13 points in 2004. I think it's gonna be very close, very possibly will go to the Democrats. And Georgia, I think, will be quite close.

In fact, if Georgia flips to the Democrats in this election, which is possible if black turnout is high enough, I mean that could really tell you a lot about how — how fast things are changing in the South. So I think it's a new day dawning in the South, absolutely.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

And you make a great point that even if these are close, the fact that you know, in '04, there were double digit Republican victories is an indication that trends are afoot that are going to continue beyond 2008. Rudy Teixeira is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress Fund on the line with us from Silver Spring, Maryland. Thanks, Rudy.

RUDY TEIXEIRA:

Sure.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

And Adaora, wow, lots in motion, even independent of turnout.

[BOTH AT ONCE]

ADAORA UDOJI:

Oh, there's no question. Oh, the anticipation's going to kill me, John.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

No, it's not going to kill you. You've got to do a show tomorrow.

ADAORA UDOJI:

It's going to. I'm going to feel like I'm dying.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

No, no, no, no. No, you're not.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

You'll see —

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

They’ve got to get you a better perch down there. Come on, come on, let's work on that.

ADAORA UDOJI:

[LAUGHS] They're treating us so well here.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

All right, that's great.

ADAORA UDOJI:

Clark Atlanta University.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Live from Clark Atlanta University, Adaora Udoji. And we're here in New York. America's Exit Poll is open at 877-8MYTAKE.