Red states and blue states

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Summary of results of the 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential elections.      States carried by the Republican in all four elections      States carried by the Republican in three of the four elections      States carried by each party twice in the four elections      States carried by the Democrat in three of the four elections      States carried by the Democrat in all four elections

Composition, by party, of the 110th United States Senate

Red states and blue states refer to those states of the United States whose residents predominantly vote for the Republican Party or Democratic Party, presidential candidates, respectively. A blue state tends to vote for the Democratic Party, while a red state tends towards the Republican Party. According to The Washington Post, the terms were coined by television journalist Tim Russert during his televised coverage of the 2000 presidential election.^[1] That was not, however, the first election during which the news media used colored maps to graphically depict voter preferences in the various states, but it was the first time a standard color scheme took hold. Since 2000, usage of the term has been expanded to differentiate between states being perceived as liberal and those perceived as conservative.

This unofficial system used in the United States stands in contrast to the system of political colors in most other long-established democracies, where blue represents right wing and conservative parties, while red represents left-wing and socialist parties.

[edit] Origins of current color scheme

Prior to the 2000 presidential election, there was no universally recognized color scheme to represent political parties in the United States. In fact, the color scheme was often reversed, in line with historical European associations (red used for left-leaning parties).^[2][3]

There is some historical use 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 speakers and illiterates identify the parties.^[4] However, this system was not applied consistently in Texas and was not picked up on a national level.

The practice of using colors to represent parties on electoral maps dates back at least as far as 1908, when The New York Times printed a special color map using yellow and blue to detail Theodore Roosevelt's 1904 electoral victory.^[5] In the 1950s, color-coding as a format was employed within the Hammond series of historical atlases.^{[citation needed]}

Color-based schemes became more widespread with the adoption of color television in the 1960s and nearly ubiquitous with the advent of color in newspapers. A three-color scheme: red, white and blue, the colors of the U.S. flag, makes sense, as the third color, white, is useful in depicting maps showing states that are "undecided" in the polls and in election-night television coverage.

Early on, some channels used a scheme of red for Democrats and blue for Republicans. The first television news network to use colors to depict the states won by presidential candidates was NBC. In 1976, John Chancellor, the anchorman for the NBC Nightly News, asked his network's engineers to construct a large electronic map of the USA. The map was placed in the network's election-night news studio. If Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate that year, won a state it would light up in red; if Gerald Ford, the Republican, carried a state it would light up in blue. The feature proved to be so popular that four years later all three major television networks would use colors to designate the states won by the presidential candidates. NBC continued to use the color scheme employed in 1976 for several years; NBC newsman David Brinkley famously referred to the 1980 election map as showing Ronald Reagan's 44-state landslide as a "sea of blue".^[6] CBS, from 1984 on, used the opposite scheme—blue for Democrats, red for Republicans. ABC used yellow for one major party and blue for the other in 1976. However, in 1980 and 1984, ABC used red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. As late as 1996, there was still no universal association of one color with one party.^[7] If anything, by 1996, color schemes were relatively mixed, as CNN, CBS, ABC, and The New York Times referred to Democratic states with the color blue and Republican ones as red, while Time Magazine and the Washington Post used an opposite scheme.^[8][9][10]

In the days following the protracted 2000 election, 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 usage in the weeks following the 2000 presidential election. Journalists began to routinely refer to "blue states" and "red states," even before the 2000 election was settled.^{[citation needed]} After the results were final, journalists stuck with the color scheme, as the December 2001 The Atlantic's 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,^[11] despite the fact that no "official" color choices had been made by the parties.

[edit] Map interpretation problems

The blue and red state color scheme when applied for U.S. state legislative upper house majorities as of the 2008 general elections.

There are several problems in creating and interpreting election maps that should be taken into account. Popular vote data is necessarily aggregated at several levels, such as counties and states, which are then colored to show election results. Maps of this type are called choropleth maps, which have several well known problems that can result in interpretation bias. One problem arises 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 in that the units are not equally significant. A large county or state may have fewer voters than a small one, for example. Some maps attempt to account for this by using cartogram methods, but the resulting distortion makes such maps difficult to read.

Another problem relates to data classification. Election maps often use a two-class color scheme (red and blue), which results in a map that is easy to read but is highly 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 have various problems association with classification of data. The cartographer must choose how many classes to use and how to break 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.^[12]

U.S. state legislative lower house majorities as of the 2008 general elections. (Nebraska, in black, has a unicameral legislature.)

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, an area shaded light red surrounded by areas shaded dark red will appear even lighter. Differing shades of red and blue compound this problem of perception. Because of this problem, cartographers have traditionally limited the number of classes so that it is always clear which class a color shade represents. Some election maps, however, have broken this tradition by simply coloring each areal unit with a red-blue mixture linked to voting ratio data. 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 highly prone to the problems of color perception described above. All these points should be taken into account when looking at election maps.

[edit] Critiques

The paradigm has come under criticism on a number of fronts. Many argue that the usefulness of assigning partisanship to states is only really useful as it pertains to the Electoral College, primarily a winner-take-all system of elections (with the exceptions of Nebraska and Maine).

The Republican and Democratic parties within a particular state may have a platform that departs from that of the national party, sometimes leading that state to favor one party in state and local elections and the other in Presidential elections. This is most evident in the Southern United States where the state Democratic parties tend to be more conservative than the national party. Arkansas and West Virginia were won by George W. Bush in 2004, but Democrats make up the majority of officeholders in those states; similarly, Tennessee went solidly for Bush in both 2000 and 2004, but its governor is a Democrat and both houses of its legislature have Democratic majorities. The converse can also be true, as in the case of Maine, which has two Republican senators but voted for John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election.

Some conservatives have also been wary of using the red state term to describe conservative or Republican-voting electorates, as the term had previously most often been associated with communist states, like the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and East Germany.

In his keynote address before the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama rejected the division of the United States into red states and blue states, saying, "We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. ... We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."^[13]

In April 2008, Republican presidential nominee John McCain predicted that the 2008 presidential election would not follow the red state/blue state pattern, saying, "I'm not sure that the old red state, blue state scenario that prevailed for the last several elections works. I think most of these states that we have either red or blue are going to be up for grabs."^[14]

[edit] Purple States

2008 United States presidential election results by county, on a color spectrum from Democratic blue to Republican red

A purple state refers to a swing state where both Democratic and Republican candidates receive strong support without an overwhelming majority of support for either party.

The demographic and political applications of the terms have led to a temptation to presume this arbitrary classification is a clear-cut and fundamental cultural division. Given the general nature and common perception of the two parties, "red state" implies a conservative region or a more conservative type of American, and "blue state" implies a liberal region or a more liberal type of American. But the distinction between the two groups of states is hardly so simplistic. The analysis that suggests political, cultural, and demographic differences between the states is more accurate when applied to smaller geographical areas.

Cartogram of the United States, showing each county with a size proportional to its population. The colors reflect 2004 presidential election results.

Traditionally, the practice of designating a U.S. state as "red" or "blue" is based on the winner-take-all system employed for presidential elections by 48 of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. (Electoral law in Maine and Nebraska makes it possible for those states to split their electoral votes; this actually happened for the first time in 2008, when Nebraska's 2nd congressional district assigned its elector to Barack Obama.)

Despite the prevalent winner-take-all practice, the minority always gets a sizeable vote. Because of this, a third term has emerged, referring to these closely-divided states as purple states. Furthermore, it could be argued that all states are "purple" to varying degrees and that the "red vs. blue" division is far from an accurate description of US culture.

All states were consistent in voting for George W. Bush or his opponent in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections except for three: New Mexico (Gore in '00 and Bush in '04), Iowa (Gore in '00 and Bush in '04) and New Hampshire (Bush in '00 and Kerry in '04). The 2004 election showed two of these three states to be true to the presidential preferences of their respective regions, creating a greater regional separation; thus, an argument that the country is more divided from the 2000 election. All three of those states were very close in both elections. In 2008 Obama carried Iowa and New Hampshire by more than 9 points, and New Mexico by double digits.

[edit] Polarization

Cartogram of Electoral College results (votes as of 2008) of the past four Presidential elections (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)      States carried by the Republican in all four elections      States carried by the Republican in three of the four elections      States carried by each party twice in the four elections      States carried by the Democrat in three of the four elections      States carried by the Democrat in all four elections

The division between red states and blue states has triggered a pronounced introspection among blue staters and red staters. Feelings of cultural and political polarization, which have gained increased media attention since the 2004 election, have led to increased mutual feelings of alienation and enmity. These attitudes have led to the often jocular suggestion that a red state-blue state secession is in order. The Jesusland map is one such joke, a satirical map that redraws the U.S.-Canada border to reflect this sociopolitical schism.

Polarization is more evident on a county scale. Nearly half of U.S. voters resided in counties that voted for Bush or Kerry by 20 percentage points or more in 2004. By comparison, only a quarter of voters lived in such counties in 1976.^[15]

The polarization has been present for only two close elections (2000 and 2004). In the 1996 election, 31 U.S. states were "blue" and 19 "red" (though at the time the current color scheme was not as universal as today). One trend that has been true for several election cycles is that states that vote Republican tend to be more rural (thus having fewer electoral votes) than states that vote Democratic.

Viewing the nation as divided into two camps ignores the largest single group of Americans, namely, those who don't vote at all. In the 2000 election only about 54 percent of eligible voters actually turned out to vote. In 2004, despite expensive get-out-the-vote campaigns by both ideological camps, the percentage who voted rose only a few points from the previous election. In fact, in 2004, an all-time record was set when more than 80 million eligible voters failed to vote; this number was far greater than the votes secured by either Bush or Kerry, by a substantial margin.

In fact, no Republican or Democratic nominee has attracted as much as 30 percent of eligible voters since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

[edit] The divide

Party control of Governors' offices.      Democratic Governor      Republican Governor

Percentage of members of the House of Representatives (as of 2009-01-06) from each party by state.

Although the Electoral College determines the Presidential election, a more precise measure of how the country actually voted may be better represented by either a county-by-county or a district-by-district map. By breaking the map down into smaller units (including many "blue counties" lying next to "red counties"), these maps tend to display many states with a purplish hue, thus demonstrating that an ostensibly "blue" or "red" state may in fact be closely divided. Note that election maps of all kinds are subject to errors of interpretation as described below.

These county-by-county and district-by-district maps reveal that the true nature of the divide is between urban areas/inner suburbs and suburbs/rural areas. For example, in the 2008 elections, even in "solidly blue" states, the majority of voters in most rural counties voted for Republican John McCain, with some exceptions. And in "solidly red" states, a majority of voters in most urban counties voted for Democrat Barack Obama. And an even more detailed precinct-by-precinct breakdown demonstrates that, in many cases, large cities voted for Obama, but their suburbs were divided.

Red states and blue states have several demographic differences from each other. The association between colors and demographics was notably made in a column by Mike Barnicle, and reinforced in a controversial response from Paul Begala (though the association between demographics and voting patterns was well known before that).

In the 2008 elections both parties received at least 40% from all sizable socio-economic demographics, according to exit polling. In 2008, college graduates were split equally; those with postgraduate degrees voted for Obama by a 18% margin. For household income, Obama got a majority of households with less than $50,000 in annual income, and Mcain got a households consisting of married couples. Mcain held the more suburban and rural areas of both the red and blue states, while Obama received the large majority of the urban city areas in all the states. Ralph Nader did not win any electoral college votes yet received 2% of the vote of voters from high income households and voters with graduate degrees.^[16]

SOURCE: CNN Exit polls 13,660 surveyed^[17]

[edit] Reaction

[edit] International

The choice of colors in this divide appears counter-intuitive to many observers, as in many countries, red is often associated with left-of-center parties, while blue is used to depict conservative parties. For example, in Canada party colors are deeply ingrained and historic and have been unchanged since the late nineteenth century. The Liberal Party of Canada has long used red and the Conservative Party of Canada has long used blue, and in fact the phrases Liberal red and Tory blue are a part of the national lexicon, as is Red Tory, denoting Conservative members who are social moderates. Similarly, the symbol of the United Kingdom's Labour Party is a red rose (and the socialist song "The Red Flag" is still sung at party conferences), while the UK Conservatives have traditionally used the color blue. If the US followed such a pattern, blue would be used for the Republicans and red for the Democrats. However, the current US scheme has become so ingrained in the American election system that foreign sources who cover US elections, such as the BBC, Der Spiegel and El Mundo follow with the red-Republican, blue-Democratic scheme for US elections.^[18][19][20]

[edit] United States

While the "Democratic blue" and "Republican red" color scheme is now part of the lexicon of American journalism, neither national committee of the parties has officially accepted these color designations.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made use of the color scheme when it launched a national "Red to Blue Program" in 2006.^[21] Otherwise the color scheme is unofficial and informal but is widely recognized by media and commentators. Partisan supporters now often use the colors for promotional materials and campaign merchandise.

The scheme has found acceptance and implementation from the U.S. Federal Government, as the Federal Elections Commission report for the 2004 presidential Election uses the red-Republican, blue-Democratic scheme for its electoral map.^[22]

[edit] See also

• Swing state
• United States presidential election maps
• Purple America
• Jesusland map
• Political ideologies in the United States
• Southernization

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Red state-blue state divide

• RedState A politically conservative site using the "Red State" identity.
• Living Blue in the Red States edited by David Starkey
• The Urban Archipelago by The Stranger
• Blue is the New Green Series of US maps showing the correlation of financial and socio-economic metrics to the blue and red states
• Purple States, Gives Americans -- of all backgrounds and beliefs, ages and affinities, red and the blue and the in-between -- a chance to experience and interpret politics for themselves.
• Maps and cartograms of the 2004 presidential election results, adjusting Red State/ Blue State maps for voting population rather than geographic area alone.
• City Ranks is a Google Maps mashup showing the population density in an interactive map.
• One Nation, Slightly Divisible - David Brooks (subscription required)
• Washington Post series:
  • For a Conservative, Life is Sweet in Sugar Land, Tex.
  • A Liberal Life in the City by the Bay
• Federal Review Composite Poll - 2004 Electoral College Projection
• Washington Post "Elephants Are Red, Donkeys Are Blue"
• "One Fate, Two Fates, Red States, Blue States"
• CNN "Learn the signs of your political colors" from September 2001
• Election maps from December, 2000
• Choosing colors based on incumbent vs. challenger victory from November, 2004
• The Honky Tonk Gap: Country Music, Red State Identity, and the Election of 2004
• Blue States Website Blue States
• [1] American Feud: A History of Conservatives and Liberals