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Further information: Electoral geography of the United States

Map of results by state of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, representing states won by the Democrats as blue and those won by the Republican Party as red.

Map of results by state of the 2000 U.S. presidential election reflect current practice, representing states won by the Republicans with red, and states won by the Democrats with blue.

Red States and Blue States refer to those states whose residents predominantly vote for the Republican Party or Democratic Party presidential candidates, respectively. The term began to emerge in mainstream political discussion following the 2000 presidential election. However, the term gained ubiquitous status after the 2004 presidential elections.(See Origins of current color scheme) Since then, usage of the term has been expanded to differentiate between states being perceived as liberal and those perceived as conservative. A blue state may thereby be any state leaning towards the Democratic ticket while a red state may be any state leaning towards the Republican ticket.

This unofficial system used in the United States of America is in stark contrast to the color system used in the vast majority of other nations. In most other parts of the world, blue represents right wing and conservative parties, while red represents left wing and socialist/socially liberal parties.

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 2004 elections, even in "solidly Blue" states, the majority of voters in most rural counties and a smaller majority in most suburban areas voted for Bush, with some exceptions. And in "solidly Red" states, a majority of voters in most urban counties voted for John Kerry. And an even more detailed precinct-by-precinct breakdown demonstrates that, in many cases, large cities voted for Kerry, but their suburbs delivered their respective county to Bush.

Results by income demographic of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, representing percent of total vote per income group and the split of the income group between John Kerry as blue, George W. Bush as red and Ralph Nader as green.

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 2004 elections both parties received at least 40% from all sizable socio-economic demographics, according to exit polling. In 2004, college graduates were split equally at 49% for both Kerry and Bush; those with postgraduate degrees voted for Kerry by a 10% margin and those with Bachelor's Degrees voted for Bush by a 6% margin. For household income, Kerry won in households with less than $50,000 in annual income, and Bush won in households consisting of married couples and those with greater than $50,000 annual income. Bush held the more suburban and rural areas of both the red and blue states, while Kerry received the large majority of the urban city areas in all the states. Ralph Nader did not win any electoral college votes yet received 1% of the vote from high income households and holders of graduate degrees.^[1]

SOURCE: CNN Exit polls 13,660 surveyed^[1]

2004 United States presidential election results by county, on a color spectrum from Democratic blue to Republican red

A purple state is a state that is more or less equally divided between the Republicans and Democrats.

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. Pennsylvania, for example, shows "red" characteristics in the Westsylvania interior, but "blue" characteristics around the urban centers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Democratic political consultant James Carville has described Pennsylvania as "Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between," suggesting that Pennsylvania, like several other blue states, would be solid Republican without its major cities, due to its remainder's religious and rural (thus socially conservative) nature.

Cartogram of the United States, showing each county with a size proportional to its population. The colors refer to 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 (Nebraska and Maine being the exceptions, although due to their partisan alignment and size, neither state in actuality splits its electoral votes) and the District of Columbia.

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.

A map of the 2004 United States election results by county using a different method than the Purple America maps. This map makes the counties more distinguishable by making the colors of red and blue lighter as the percentage in which they are won becomes slimmer and darker as the victory becomes more lopsided.

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.

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.

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 colors were not used by most major news outlets). One trend that has been true for several election cycles is that states that vote Republican tend to be more rural (and thus have 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.

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 chose 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 chrolopleth maps are subject to the interpretation error known as the ecological fallacy. Finally, there are problems association 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.

Prior to the 2000 presidential election, there was no universally recognized color scheme to represent political parties in the USA. The practice of using colors to represent parties on electoral maps dates back at least as far as the 1950s, when such 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, and 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, the most common—though again, not universal—color scheme was to use red for Democrats and blue for Republicans. This was the color scheme employed by NBC—David Brinkley famously referred to the 1984 map showing Reagan's 49-state landslide as a "sea of blue", but this color scheme was also employed by most newsmagazines. CBS during this same period, however, used the opposite scheme—blue for Democrats, red for Republicans. ABC was less consistent than its elder network brothers; in at least two presidential elections during this time before the emergence of cable news outlets, ABC used yellow for one major party and blue for the other. As late as 1996, there was still no universal association of one color with one party.^[2] If anything, the majority of outlets in 1996 were using blue for the GOP and red for the Democrats.^{[citation needed]}

But in 2000, for the first time, all major electronic media outlets used the same colors for each party: Red for Republicans, blue for Democrats. Partly as a result of this near-universal color-coding, the terms Red States and Blue States entered popular usage in the weeks following the 2000 presidential election. Additionally, the closeness of the disputed election kept the colored maps in the public view for longer than usual. Journalists began to routinely refer to "blue states" and "red states," even before the 2000 election was settled. After the results were final, journalists stuck with the color scheme, such as The Atlantic's cover story by David Brooks in the December 2001 issue entitled, "One Nation, Slightly Divisible." Thus red and blue became fixed in the media and in many people's minds [2] despite the fact that no "official" color choices had been made by the parties.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made use of the color scheme when it launched a national "Red to Blue Program" in 2006. [3] 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 choice of colors in this divide is counter-intuitive to many international observers, as throughout the world, red is commonly the designated color for parties representing labor, socialist, and/or liberal interests [4] [5], which in the United States would be more closely correlated with the Democratic Party. Similarly, blue is used in these countries to depict conservative parties which in the case of the United States would be a color more suitable for the Republicans. 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 Britain's Labour Party is a red rose (and the socialist song 'The Red Flag' is still sung at party conferences), while the British Conservatives are traditionally associated with the color blue.

The former regulations adopted by the New York City Board of Elections for the colors required of the paper of designating petitions (by which the parties nominate candidates for primary elections) called for green for Democrats and pink for Republicans. It is not difficult to speculate that color associations such as these came about in reaction against the associations evoked of the more strongly ideologic parties of other countries, such that Democrats would react strongly against an accusation of being "red" or "pink". Yellow could be considered derogatory, indicating pusillanimity even if labeled "gold"; brown could evoke fascists and feces, and would not be technically feasible on television.

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 (currently, Maine and Nebraska allow for electoral votes to be split between tickets if the vote tallies in individual districts are different).

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. Arkansas and West Virginia were won by George W. Bush in 2004, but Democrats comprise the majority of officeholders in those states. Maine has two Republican senators but voted for John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election. Similarly, North Carolina went solidly for George Bush in both 2000 and 2004, but its governor is a Democrat and and both houses of its legislature have Democratic majorities.

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 socialist states, like the U.S.S.R., Cuba, China, and East Germany.^{[citation needed]} However, it may be argued that a color scheme associating red with the Democratic Party would have never become widely popularized since Democrats would have been just as reluctant to associate themselves with a color that has been historically perceived as associated with "un-American" communism.

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

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Red state-blue state divide

• Living Blue in the Red States edited by David Starkey
• Blue is the New Green Series of US maps showing the correlation of financial and socio-economic metrics to the blue and red states
• 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 correlation between population density and the Red State/Blue State phenomenon 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
• BlueStatesRedStates.com A Purple site for Red & Blue times
• www.sometimesredsometimesblue.com
• The Honky Tonk Gap: Country Music, Red State Identity, and the Election of 2004