Why are the "red" and "blue" states called such?

Question

I guess my real question is why have they chosen to use red and blue?

Answer 1

Because the election maps on the TV show states giving electorial votes to the republican candidate in red, and states giving their electorial votes to the democrat in blue.

Link takes you to a commonly used media 'vote tracker' showing how polls indicate the vote will go state by state. Since most state have 'all or nothing' rules for their electorial votes (that is: whatever candidate gets the majority in the state gets all of the states electorial votes) this is a handy method for predicting the outcome of the presidential election.

Also note: Most states have a reliable voting majority that trends to one party or the other. New York, for example, will usually have a majority democrat in spite of a large number of conservitive parties. And no one expects Alabama to vote democrat again for a long time.

The states that go back and forth are then called 'battleground' states because there is so much more competion for the votes there.

Answer 2

To follow up on what other folks have said, red and blue are primary colors and thus easy to see and tell apart. Similar color schemes are used by TV in other countries during election campaigns. For example, in the UK, Labour is normally shown in Red with the Conservatives in Blue and the Liberal Democrats (the largest of the third parties) in Yellow.

In most countries, the red is the left and the blue is the right. I do not know how it got reversed in this country because when they first started doing this the networks were somewhat split (and still are) as to which color went with which party.

Answer 3

Red and Blue are the most popular colors, are bright, and easy to see, when at election time, when the media news shows the map of the states, to show what states had the majority vote for each party. They are also two colors representing America, and our flag.
They are called blue states, because blue is for the democrats, and red for the Republicans.

Answer 4

It's just people's attempt to further fragment the country.

I've looked out the window, and I can't tell what color this state is. Looks like it's pretty colorful. It has green trees, some multi-colored flowers, and bunches of cars also of various colors. The streets, by and large, are asphalt, so, except for white or orange stripes, they're black.

Newspapers used to color states to graphically represent how the states tended to vote in an election. Today it's become a kind of derogatory label--kind of like "neo-con" and "lib". I'm willing to bet that no entire state votes a party. But that's what the state-painters would have you believe.

Why do thy do it? I don't know, other than to stir up hate and discontent.

Answer 5

SMBR is correct. They refer to the colors the various news outlets use on their political maps on Election Night during a Presidential election to indicate which party has carried which state. For whatever reason, red was chosen as the color of the GOP and blue for the Democrats. However, if we were going to go by history, red should be the color for the Democrats, since red is typically the color associated with Communism and the Democrats are neo-Communists anyway.

Answer 6

They are called that for their dominant historical political loyalty. Basically, if a state has been predominately a Republican state, then they are a red state. The same with Democratic, they are blue.

Answer 7

It started in the 2000 election - Bush states were red and Gore states were Blue and it became a way to differentiate conservative vs. liberal states going forward.

Answer 8

They are called red or blue for their political alliance. Red state is mostly Repulican, Blue is Democrat.

Answer 9

Well Republicans do tend to like to go to war and see more blood shed which leaves the Democrats feeling blue.

Answer 10

It's sad that the media politicizes colors that everyone loves.