Analysts who dove into last week's presidential election results came up with findings that connect census data with political trends. President Obama won a second term thanks partly to strong support among racial and ethnic minorities, as well as from young voters – groups that make up a rising share of the population. "The 2008 Obama coalition wasn't a fluke; it was the country we are becoming," columnist Paul Krugman posted in his New York Times blog shortly after the counting. At NBC News, chief political correspondent Chuck Todd put it this way: "The most significant event of this presidential contest might very well have been the 2010 census."

The outcome is a stark message for the Republican Party, commentators on both sides say. Mitt Romney lost even though he won six out of every 10 white voters and a majority of senior citizens. That wasn't enough because the overall share of white voters and older voters is declining. They are 72 percent of the current electorate and by 2012 "will probably drop to 70 percent," Todd says, adding: "What happened was a demographic time bomb that had been ticking and that blew up in GOP faces."

Here's why population changes could put some Republicans at a disadvantage: A majority of black, Hispanic and young voters favor approaches on immigration, abortion and same-sex marriage that differ from more conservative views voiced by Mitt Romney and some others in his party. Nicholas Kristoff, another Times columnist, put it starkly a day after the election: "A coalition of aging white men is a recipe for failure in a nation that increasingly looks like a rainbow." Mark McKinnon, a former strategist for George W. Bush, agrees his party "needs messages and policies that appeal to a broader audience."

Voter says: "I feel closer to [Obama]. He cares about Spanish people." -- Omayra Vasquez, 43-year-old Federal Express worker in Denver

Columnist says: "The G.O.P. today is at war with too many in the next generation of America." – Thomas Friedman, New York Times

Broadcaster says: Republicans "can no longer rely on white voters to win national elections anymore." –Chuck Todd, NBC News White House correspondent