Red states and blue states
Starting with the 2000 United States presidential election, the terms red state and blue state have referred to US states whose voters vote predominantly for one party—the Republican Party in red states and the Democratic Party in blue states—in presidential and other statewide elections. By contrast, states where the predominant vote fluctuates between Democratic and Republican candidates are known as swing states or purple states. Examining patterns within states reveals that 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. However, the perception of some states as "blue" and some as "red", based on plurality or majority support for either main party, was reinforced by a degree of partisan stability from election to election—from the 2016 presidential election to the 2020 presidential election, only five states changed "color"; and as of 2024, 35 out of 50 states have voted for the same party in every presidential election since the red-blue terminology was popularized in 2000, with only 15 having swung between the 2000 presidential election and the 2024 election. Although many red states and blue states stay in the same category for long periods, they may also switch from blue to red or from red to blue over time.
History of the color schematics
Origins
The colors red and blue are also featured on the United States flag. Traditional political mapmakers, at least throughout the 20th century, had used blue to represent the modern-day Republicans, as well as the earlier Federalist Party. This may have been a holdover from the Civil War, during which the predominantly Republican north was considered However, at that time, a maker of widely sold maps accompanied them with blue pencils to mark Confederate force movements, while red was for the Union.Later, in the 1888 presidential election, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison used maps that coded blue for the Republicans, the color perceived to represent the Union and "Lincoln's Party", and red for the Democrats. The parties themselves had no official colors, with candidates variously using either or both of the national color palette of red and blue.
There was one historical use, associated with boss rule, of blue for Democrats and red for Republicans: during 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 Democrats and yellow for Republicans, 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-favoring states, blue for Democratic-favoring states, yellow for "doubtful" states and green for territories that did not have a presidential vote.
Contrast with color usage in other countries
The 21st-century association of colors in American politics is contrary to the long-standing conventions of political color in most other countries whereby red symbols are associated with leftist politics including countries with such governments, such as Red China, whereas blue is associated with conservatism. As late as the 1990s, Democrats were often represented by red and Republicans by blue. According to The Washington Post, journalist Tim Russert invented these terms during his televised coverage of the 2000 United States presidential election. The 2000 election was not the first during which the news media used colored maps to depict voter preferences in the various states, but it was the first time the current red–blue terminology was used. In previous elections, the color assignments or even the actual colors used were often different.History of current designations
The advent of color television in America during the late 1950s and early 1960s prompted television news reporters to rely on color-coded electoral maps, though sources conflict as to the conventions they used. 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 the convention of alternating every four years between blue and red the color used for the incumbent president's party.According to another source, in 1976, John Chancellor, the anchorman for NBC Nightly News, asked his network's engineers to construct a large illuminated map of the United States. The map was placed in the network's election-night news studio. If Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate that year, won a state, it was lit in red whereas if Gerald Ford, the incumbent Republican president, won a state, it was lit It was said that Roy Wetzel, then the newly appointed general manager of NBC's election unit, justified the color scheme of blue for Republicans and red for Democrats for a simple reason: "Great Britain. Without giving it a second thought, we said blue for conservatives, because that's what the parliamentary system in London is, red for the more liberal party. And that settled it. We just did it. Forget all that communist red stuff. It didn't occur to us. When I first heard it, I thought, 'Oh, that's really The feature proved to be so popular that, four years later, all three major television networks used colors to designate the states won by the presidential candidates, though not all using the same color scheme. NBC continued its color scheme NBC newsman David Brinkley referred to the 1980 election map outcome showing Republican Ronald Reagan's 44-state landslide in blue as resembling a "suburban
Since the 1984 election, CBS has used the opposite scheme: blue for Democrats, red for Republicans. ABC used yellow for Republicans and blue for Democrats in 1976, then red for Republicans and blue for Democrats in 1980, 1984, and 1988. In 1980, when John Anderson had a relatively well publicized campaign as an independent candidate, at least one network indicated provisionally that they would use yellow if he were to win a state. Similarly, at least one network would have used yellow to indicate a state won by Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, though neither of them did claim any states in any of these years.
By 1996, color schemes were relatively mixed, as CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, and The New York Times referred to Democratic states with the color blue and Republican ones as red, while Time and The Washington Post used the opposite scheme.
In the days after the 2000 election, the outcome of which was unknown for some time after election day, major media outlets began conforming to the same color scheme because the electoral map was continually in view, and conformity made for easy and instant viewer comprehension. On election night that year, there was no coordinated effort to code Democratic states blue and Republican states red; the association gradually emerged. Partly as a result of this eventual and near-universal color-coding, the terms "red states" and "blue states" entered popular use in the weeks after the 2000 presidential election. After the results were final with the Republican George W. Bush winning, journalists stuck with the color scheme, as The Atlantic's December 2001 cover story by David Brooks entitled, "One Nation, Slightly Divisible", illustrated.
Thus, red and blue became fixed in the media and in many people's minds, despite the fact that the Democratic and Republican parties had not officially chosen colors. Some Republicans argue the GOP should retain its historic association with blue, since most center-right parties worldwide are associated with blue. On March 14, 2014, the California Republican Party officially rejected red and adopted blue as its color. Archie Tse, The New York Times graphics editor who made the choice when the Times published its first color presidential election map in 2000, provided a nonpolitical rationale for retaining the red–Republican link, explaining that "Both 'Republican' and 'red' start with the letter 'R.'"
Map interpretation
There are several problems in creating and interpreting election maps. Popular vote data are necessarily aggregated at several levels, such as counties and states, which are then colored to show election results. Maps of this type are termed choropleth maps, which have several well-known problems that can result in interpretation bias. One problem occurs when areal units differ in size and significance, as is the case with election maps. These maps give extra visual weight to larger areal units, whether by county or state. This problem is compounded if the units are not equally significant. A large county or state in area may have fewer voters than a small one in area, for example. Some maps attempt to account for this by using cartogram methods, but the resulting distortion can make such maps difficult to read. Another problem relates to data classification. Election maps often use a two-class color scheme, which results in a map that is easy to read but is very generalized. Some maps use more classes, such as shades of red and blue to indicate the degree of election victory. These maps provide a more detailed picture but themselves have various problems associated with classification of data. The cartographer must choose how many classes to use and how to divide the data into those classes. While there are various techniques available, the choice is essentially arbitrary. The look of a map can vary significantly depending on the classification choices. The choices of color and shading likewise affect the map's appearance. Further, all election maps are subject to the interpretation error known as the ecological fallacy.Finally, there are problems associated with human perception. Large areas of color appear more saturated than small areas of the same color. A juxtaposition of differing colors and shades can result in contrast misperceptions. For example, due to the simultaneous contrast effect, the Bezold effect, and other factors, an area shaded light red surrounded by areas shaded dark red will appear even lighter. Differing shades of red and blue compound this effect.
Cartographers have traditionally limited the number of classes so that it is always obvious which class a color shade represents. Some election maps, however, have violated this tradition by simply coloring each areal unit with a red-blue mixture linked to voting ratio data—resulting in an "unclassified choropleth map". These "purple maps" are useful for showing the highly mixed nature of voting, but are extremely difficult to interpret in detail. The lack of clear classes make these purple maps prone to the problems of color perception described above. However, there are pros and cons to both classified and unclassified choropleth maps. Each tend to show some patterns well while obscuring others. All these facts should be taken into account when looking at election maps.