Is the Republican Party in danger of permanently losing the “ethnic vote” — not just African-Americans, who traditionally vote overwhelmingly Democratic, but also Hispanics and Asians who constitute an ever-increasing share of the US electorate?

Democrats began promoting this argument after the 2008 presidential election, when Barack Obama swept the black vote 9-1 and also carried Hispanics by over 2-1, reversing a noticeable Latino tilt towards the GOP under George W. Bush.

And they’re pushing it again, because Republicans strongly oppose Obamacare and an “amnesty” for illegal aliens, despite strong Latino support for these policies. Even some top GOP leaders are expressing serious concern about the party’s “image problem” with ethnic voters.

But look at what’s actually happening in this year’s electoral races. Despite all the talk of a Republican embrace of “nativism” — or worse, “racism” — the party has been slowly positioning itself to make new inroads with ethnic voters, including Latinos. And Democrats, for all their talk of being the party of “inclusion,” may be in danger of losing ethnic support, especially from voters who aren’t in lockstep with their economic and social policies.

Consider, for example, which party is visibly promoting minority candidates for higher office this year. Two Hispanics are running for governor — in New Mexico and Nevada — and one is running for the Senate — in Florida. All three are Republicans with steady double-digit leads in the polls. The GOP candidate in New Mexico, Susana Martinez, is poised to become the first female Hispanic governor in US history — and she’ll surely emerge as an instant GOP spokeswoman if she wins.

A fourth GOP candidate, Nikki Haley, who is Indian-American, is running for governor of South Carolina, and could join Louisiana’s Republican governor Bobby Jindal as the nation’s only Indian state chief executives. Like Martinez, she’s part of the largest wave of female GOP candidates in US history, thanks in part to financial and political support from Sarah Palin.

By contrast, most of the female House and Senate Democratic candidates running for office this year are incumbents who came to power during the past decade or so. A large number are likely to lose their races for re-election. That means there will be fewer women in Congress after November 2nd, but a much higher share of them will be Republicans.

But it’s not just the number of new GOP minority and female candidates — but also their caliber — that is so striking, a fact that even some Democrats grudgingly acknowledge. Marco Rubio, the telegenic and soft-spoken Cuban-American running in Florida’s Senate race, has been called the “Republican Barack Obama.” His story of emerging from the squalor of his parents’ lives to achieve success in America — and his constant invocation of the country’s role as the world’s “beacon of liberty” — has moved some audiences, and not just Republicans, to tears.

While the new GOP candidates have clearly rallied the base, it’s still unclear how far their inroads with ethnic voters actually go. None of the three GOP Hispanic candidates endorses immigration reform — Martinez especially — but polls suggest that many Latinos are still prepared to vote for them, in part because of their ethnicity. Rubio clearly has a strong following among his fellow Cuban-Americans, who still dominate Florida’s Latino community. And some of the female candidates are helping to narrow the GOP’s traditional gender gap with Democrats.

The US ethnic vote, it turns out, is far from monolithic. Unlike blacks, neither Latinos nor Asians have ever really voted as a single bloc. Latinos include within their ranks a highly conservative pro-GOP constituency that is as hostile to illegal immigration as many white voters. And while about half of Latinos consistently favor Democratic candidates, a good third or more can “swing” from one party to the other, depending on the candidate and the issues.

The same is true with Asian voters. Highly educated immigrants from India and Pakistan who are successful professionals and entrepreneurs often embrace the GOP’s message of lower taxes and fiscal responsibility. However, immigrants who feel held back or left behind — Korean-Americans and Chinese-Americans especially — typically lean Democratic. But Obama, by allowing the economy and joblessness to spin out of control, may have given the GOP an opening with these voters, too.

Perhaps no other race better exemplifies GOP progress with ethnic voters than the current see-saw battle for governor in California between former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and long-time Democrat Jerry Brown. Whitman shocked the state’s political establishment by spending millions of dollars on Spanish-language ads to woo Latino voters, while Brown even refused to debate Whitman on Spanish-language television — a huge blunder. Now Whitman’s launched an unprecedented, targeted ad campaign aimed at Chinese-Americans, another of the state’s most important ethnic voting blocs. One political scientist, citing Chinese-American influence in Democratic strongholds like San Francisco, calls it a “damn smart” move.

Despite the evident success of Whitman and other GOP candidates with ethnic voters, many in the party’s conservative wing are certain to try to keep Republicans from abandoning core positions — for example, by embracing an amnesty for illegal aliens. But if GOP candidates like Haley and Rubio win next month — and many of them will — the GOP’s “pro-ethnic” wing, led by its controversial African-American chairman, Michael Steele, will gain a stronger hand, and may push the party to reach out further than it has to date.

And that could also shape the kind of presidential candidate that finally emerges from the GOP in 2012. A number of prospective contenders, like Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, are gaining in visibility and influence, and will likely emerge as powerful rivals to the likes of Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Daniels won 37% of the Latino vote and 20% of the black vote when he won re-election in 2008, impressive numbers for any Republican, especially in a Democratic sweep year. Fast forward to 2012, in a climate of voter antipathy toward Democrats, and greater openness to the GOP, and a candidate like Daniels might do even better.

In the end, even die-hard GOP xenophobes may be hard-pressed to argue with success.

Stewart J. Lawrence is a Washington, D.C.-based public policy analyst who writes frequently on immigration and Latino affairs. He is also founder and managing director of Puentes & Associates, Inc., a bilingual survey research and communications firm.