Yet, to many, especially older white Americans, this election had a deeper meaning. It signaled a return to normal in a broader sense, and a repudiation of a younger, more progressive America and, yes, one more racially diverse. To them, the Obama years are seen as a temporary blip as the nation begins to revert back to more familiar political and cultural terrain.

Still, to most Democratic operatives, the Obama years are hardly an aberration, even after Tuesday. They have long seen the Obama presidency as a sea change in American politics, where growing minority populations will lead to a future of Democratic dominance.

Neither view is entirely correct for the near term, which will witness seesaw elections between older whites and mostly younger minorities.  On Tuesday, as in earlier midterm elections, whites and those over age 45 numerically overwhelmed voters nationwide.   This contrasts with the past two presidential elections, especially 2012, when the raw power of our growing racial minorities in their enthusiastic Democratic support elected the first nonwhite president.

Longer term, the nation’s minority-driven demographic transformation will make as big a mark in the first half of this century, as did the postwar baby boom in the second half of the last.   New racial minorities — Hispanics, Asians and multiracial Americans — will more than double their populations in the next 40 years. Already these new minorities, as well as other non-white groups, account for over 90 percent of U.S. population growth.

The second part of this transformation, largely unappreciated, is the tepid growth of the nation’s aging white population, which in just 10 years will begin to decline in size. White decline has already begun among younger Americans, as the rest of the white population ages.

As this is happening, young racial minorities are filling in the ranks of children, young adults and, in the not too distant future, middle-aged citizens — and voters. Already minority children make up half of all children in 10 states; by 2027 minorities will comprise most 20- to 29-year-olds; and by 2043, most Americans.

Surveys by the Pew Research Center and others show that older whites favor smaller investment in social support programs except for those, such as Social Security, that directly affect them and they vote accordingly — largely for Republicans.  The younger minority population, in voting mostly Democratic, favors government spending on education, health and social welfare programs that benefit families and children. Helping to explain this gap is the fear of new demographic change among older Americans. More than half of white baby boomers and seniors said that the growing number of newcomers from other countries represented a threat to traditional U.S. values and customs according to a 2011 Pew survey.