We must wait more than 15 months to pick a new president, but there is already reason for the Democrats to be smiling.

If demographics is destiny, then the national Republican Party will not want to be this destiny’s child.

Washington Post political columnists Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake forecast the GOP problems first back in 2012.

"Given current demographic trends — Republicans could win virtually every single white vote in the country and not be able to win a national election," the pair wrote three years ago.

Since then, the picture for Republicans has continued to darken.

The hands-down GOP frontrunner is Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and TV show billionaire who is making immigration the signature issue of his campaign.

In his practiced, in-your-face style, Trump launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants "rapists and criminals" and went on to call for the immediate deportation of all illegal immigrants, plus building an "impenetrable wall" along the Mexican border.

Last week’s flashpoint was Trump ordering Univision’s Jorge Ramos out of his news conference. It may have burnished Trump’s anti-immigration credentials, but it only alarmed Hispanic-American voters.

Described as the most famous Spanish-language news anchor in the U.S., Ramos, an American citizen, had been trying for months to get an interview with Trump when he was escorted out of the news conference only to be told by a Trump supporter "Get out of my country." Trump’s opponent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, attacked Trump for his anti-immigration platform.

"He’s appealing to people’s angst and their anger," Bush said. "I want to solve problems so we can fix this and turn immigration into what it’s always been — an economic driver for our country."

And that is why Democrats couldn’t be happier.

The GOP knows the party is risking an epic blow-out next year. Republican consultant and pollster Whit Ayres wrote a book about it, "2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America."

"Republicans stand a slim chance of winning the presidency in 2016 — unless they nominate a transformational candidate who can dramatically broaden the GOP’s appeal," Ayres wrote.

Three years ago, Mitt Romney set a record, winning 59 percent of the white vote. Barack Obama’s coalition of other voter groups and 40 percent of the white vote gave him a sure victory.

"If the 2016 Democratic nominee can hold the same share of the white vote, he or she could win with only 75 percent of nonwhites. Hillary Clinton has proven to be a more attractive candidate than Mr. Obama among whites," Ayres writes.

The National Journal added last week that the GOP problem is that while it has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, it continues to resist expanding its base while opposing immigration reform. And the Trump phenomena is making the situation worse.

Perceptive conservative essayist Ben Domenech recently warned that Trump is leading the GOP "toward a coalition that is reduced to the narrow interests of identity politics for white people."

As political rule is to build coalition, add more voters to your base, today it appears the GOP is doing the opposite and risking losing 2016.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.