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With Barack Obamas sweeping move to reorder the nations immigration system through the stroke of the presidential pen, Democrats say the White House is making a dramatic and likely irreversible bet that the ultra-diverse Obama coalition will sustain the party through 2016 and beyond.

For months, the premier political question haunting Democrats aside from Hillary Clintons yes-or-no decision on 2016 has been whether Obamas unprecedented support from young people, women and nonwhite voters will roll over into a new campaign, with a new candidate at the top of the ticket.

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After this week, senior Democrats say, it had better.

(Also on POLITICO: How Obama got here)

The presidents decision to use his executive powers to protect some 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation is bound to draw a backlash from middle-of-the-road white voters. Republicans assailed Obamas handling of immigration in the midterm elections, catering to a conservative and notably less diverse electorate with ads in states such as Arkansas and New Hampshire. Early polling shows significant suspicion of Obamas unilateral action: An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 48 percent of Americans pre-emptively opposed to the executive actions, versus 38 percent ready to endorse them.

As a political matter, then, the presidents wager is this: that the voters with the longest memories will be those in the rapidly growing, next-generation national electorate, heavily inflected by socially progressive young people and a growing Latino population.

For all the predictable blowback Democrats will face across the South and even in areas of the Rust Belt, strategists hope the party will be rewarded handsomely in states that have swung rapidly toward their party in national elections thanks to accelerating demographic change. That may be small consolation to red-state senators like North Dakotas Heidi Heitkamp or West Virginias Joe Manchin, who may have to defend the policy when they run for reelection in a few years.

But Clinton, the most formidable Democratic figure on the political horizon, channeled the enthusiasm of most party leaders in a statement Thursday night endorsing Obamas decision to begin fixing our broken immigration system and blaming Republicans for the failure to pass comprehensive reform.

(Also on POLITICO: Clinton backs Obama on immigration)

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Democrats bet on diversity