Since 2000, red states and blue states have referred to states whose voters predominantly choose either the Republican Party or Democratic Party presidential and senatorial candidates. The use of the term has been expanded to differentiate between states perceived as liberal and those perceived as conservative. The reversal of the two parties’ geographic bases has happened at the state level, but it is more complicated locally, with urban-rural divides associated with many of the largest changes.
About Red states and blue states in brief
Since 2000, red states and blue states have referred to states whose voters predominantly choose either the Republican Party or Democratic Party presidential and senatorial candidates. The use of the term has been expanded to differentiate between states perceived as liberal and those perceived as conservative. The reversal of the two parties’ geographic bases has happened at the state level, but it is more complicated locally, with urban-rural divides associated with many of the largest changes. All states contain both liberal and conservative voters and only appear blue or red on the electoral map because of the winner-take-all system used by most states in the Electoral College. As of 2020, fully 35 out of 50 states have voted for the same party in every presidential election since the red-blue terminology was popularized in 2000. The recent association of colors in American politics lies contrary to the long-standing conventions of political color in most other countries whereby red symbols are associated with left-wing politics. The colors red and blue also feature on the United States flag. The parties themselves had no official colors, with candidates variously using either or both of the national color palette of red andblue. There was one historical use, associated with boss rule, of blue for Democrats and red for Republicans, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Texas county election boards used color-coding to help Spanish-speaking and illiterate voters identify the parties; however, this system was not applied consistently in Texas and was not replicated in any other state.
In 1908, The New York Times printed a special color map, using blue for Republicans and yellow for Democrats, to detail Theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 electoral victory. That same year, a color supplement included with a July issue of the Washington Post used red for Republican-leaning states, blue for Democratic- leaning states, yellow for doubtful states and green for territories that had no presidential vote. One source claims that in the elections prior to 2000 every state that voted for Democratic candidates but one had been coded red. It further claims that from 1976 to 2004 in an attempt to avoid favoritism in color- coding the broadcast networks standardized on the convention of alternating every four years between blue and red the color used for the incumbent president’s party. In 1976, NBC newsman David Brinkley famously referred to Ronald Reagan’s 44-state landslide as resembling a swimming pool. If Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate that year, won a state, it lit up in red whereas if Gerald Ford, the incumbent Republican President, carried a state in blue. The color scheme proved to be so popular that four years later, all three major television networks used colors to designate the presidential candidates, though not all using the same color scheme. Since the 1984 election, CBS has used the opposite color scheme: red for Democrats,. ABC used yellow for Republicans in 1976, red in 1980 and blue in 1980, then blue in 1976 for Democrats in 1980. If Gerald Ford won aState, itlit up red whereas If it won a State, it was blue.
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This page is based on the article Red states and blue states published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 10, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
