Red state vs. blue state divide

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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 became ubiquitous following the 2000 presidential election. (See Origins of current color scheme)

1 The divide
- 1.1 Purple States
2 Polarization
3 Electoral College
4 Origins of current color scheme
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] The divide

The maps that have emerged from recent U.S. elections follow a sharply-defined geographical pattern. The Red states tend to fall in the South, the Great Plains, and the Intermountain West, with the Blue states in the Northeast, the Upper Midwest and the West Coast.

The Midwest is rather divided. Indiana is red, having voted consistently for Republicans since 1968, and Iowa is thought to lean red, although Iowa is often considered to be a swing state as well, having given its support to Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and Al Gore in 2000. The states that have larger urban areas such as Illinois (Chicago), Michigan (Detroit), Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Madison), and Minnesota (Minneapolis-St. Paul) are considered to be blue. Wisconsin, however, was blue by narrow margins in 2000 and 2004, with its rural areas strongly backing George W. Bush. The strongest blue state in the Midwest, Illinois, is by far the most urban, where both Gore and 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry had over 10% margin wins, lending to the strength of its designation as being the United States' "Third Coast".

The county-by-county and district-by-district maps reveal that the true nature of the divide is between urban areas/inner suburbs and outer suburbs/rural areas. In "solidly Blue" states, most of the counties outside the major urban areas voted for Bush. In "solidly Red" states, most of the urban areas voted for John Kerry (with exceptions of Dallas, Texas, Houston, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona, San Antonio, Texas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Cincinnati, Ohio, Omaha, Nebraska, and Tampa, Florida.)

Solid Red states are Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming, which have not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. Of special note is North Dakota, which is solidly Red in presidential elections but has an all-Democratic Congressional delegation. Other strong Red states include Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas, none of which have voted Democratic since 1976. Many of these states, particularly those in the South, were once Democratic strongholds, but are now reliable supporters of Republican candidates. Of these states, Idaho is the "most" Republican, voting President Bush in 2004 by 68% (though Bush won Utah by more). In addition, Alaska, Idaho, and Wyoming are represented entirely by Republicans in Congress.

Additionally, Virginia elected Democrats to the governorship in 2001 and 2005 — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine respectively.

Image:US Presidential Elections Dem GOP.gif States currently thought to be solidly "Blue" include Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island. As well, the District of Columbia, while not a state, does vote in presidential elections, and has been solidly "Blue". Though some of these states have voted for Republican candidates as recently as the 1980s (most notably in 1984, when Ronald Reagan carried 49 states, with Minnesota and the District of Columbia being the two holdouts for Walter Mondale), they have recently supported Democratic candidates by significant margins. Of these states, Massachusetts is the "most" Democratic. In his 2004 presidential bid, John Kerry won Massachusetts, his home state, with 62% of its vote. But Massachusetts' title as "most Democratic state" is not dependent solely on the margin of victory of a favorite son. In 1972, Massachusetts was the only state carried by Democratic nominee George McGovern. (McGovern did not even carry his home state of South Dakota.) In addition, Massachusetts is the only large state to have a single party Congressional delegation. Three small states, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and North Dakota, also have all-Democratic delegations, but Massachusetts has two times the number of representatives in the House of Representatives as these three states combined.

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). The most common observation is that the majority of Red states tend to feature more rural areas, with agriculture being one of the most important industries. The majority of Blue states tend to be more urban, have higher per capita income, higher levels of post-secondary education and are more multicultural (even in such "Blue" strongholds as New York and California, the GOP won the slight majority of the white vote in 2004). These demographic trends, along with less obvious correlations, have been analysed in detail by conservative pundit Steve Sailer.

The demographic differences between smaller geographical areas applies as well to counties, which follow the same trend as states. The results of the 2004 presidential election support this, as even Red states contain Blue counties, particularly counties that include major cities. For example, out of the 17 counties that constitute Nevada, only Clark County was won by Democratic candidate John Kerry. Not only is Clark County the most populous county in Nevada, but its county seat is the city of Las Vegas. The second-closest county—in which Republican candidate George W. Bush won by the slimmest margin—was Washoe County. The county seat of Washoe County is the city of Reno. In Colorado, the cities of Denver and Boulder, along with many of their suburbs, vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

However, one exception to this is probably Indiana, where in the 2004 presidential elections Allen County, home to the state's second-largest city of Fort Wayne, voted Bush by 63%. In addition, Vanderburgh County, home to the state's third-largest city of Evansville, voted Bush by 59%. Marion County, home of Indianapolis, was only a win for Kerry by a 1% margin.

Much of the current division in American politics was foreseen by analyst Kevin Phillips in his 1969 book "The Emerging Republican Majority". Philips, just off a stint as a numbers cruncher for the Richard Nixon campaign, anticipated a strongly Republican "Heartland" and the Democratic "Yankee Northeast". He anticipated the upper Midwest, the Pacific Coast and the "non-Yankee northeast" (Pennsylvania and New Jersey) as swing regions. He also predicted, accurately, that the Democrats would not win Oklahoma in Presidential election for the rest of the century.

[edit] Purple States

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

The political and demographic 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 red without its cities, due to its remainder's rural and religious, and thus socially conservative, nature.

Cartogram of the 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), 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.

All states were consistent in voting for President Bush or his challenger 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.

[edit] Polarization

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 colors were not used consistently by the major networks). One thing that has been more consistent over this period is that the average "blue" state has a greater number of people and electoral votes than does the average "red" state. (When George W. Bush won 31 states in 2004, he gathered 286 electoral votes — an average of 9 electoral votes for each state won. When Bill Clinton won 31 states in 1996, he tallied 379 electoral votes — an average of 12 electoral votes per state carried.)

Viewing the nation as divided into two camps requires ignoring the largest single group of Americans: those who don't vote. In the 2000 election only about 54 percent of eligible voters were motivated enough to vote. In 2004, after the loudest, most-expensive get-out-the-vote campaigns by both ideological camps, the percentage who voted rose only a few points. Hence 2004 set an all-time national record with more than 80 million eligible voters taking a pass, far more than voted for either George W. Bush or John Kerry.

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

[edit] Electoral College

The winner-take-all strategy of voting has led to the resurgence of a debate about whether a national popular vote should be taken rather than the currently-instituted electoral system. Proponents of the popular vote refer to the (very small) number of candidates who have won the Presidency despite not receiving a plurality of individual votes, including George W. Bush in 2000. Proponents of the current system, however, point out that the right to choose how to award a state's electoral college votes is guaranteed to the state by the United States Constitution, and was part of the Founders' original plan for the country. Interest is growing in the National Popular Vote Campaign, which uses a state by state based platform of reform rather than a constitutional amendment to attempt to institute the popular vote. California has passed a law allowing for this, only symbolic for the time being because the law was passed under the condition that it triggers when a majority of the other states in the Union pass similar laws.

[edit] Origins of current color scheme

The origin of modern use of red states and blue states aligning with Republicans and Democrats probably goes back to some of the backroom work in the 1996 presidential election. At the time personal computer software allowed campaigns to increasingly integrate mapping technology into their decision making. In 1996, Joshua Starr, an analyst at Penn & Schoen (Demoractic polling firm) was asked by Mark Penn to create maps (using MapInfo) for a weekly political strategy session held in the private residences the Clinton White House. The maps would show the latest polling trends in each state as well as track media buys by the Clinton re-election campaign (by DMA) and general campaign activities (such as campaign stops) by the Clinton and Dole campaigns. After a few meetings, Mr. Penn told Mr. Starr that President Clinton had asked why the Democrats were marked in blue and the Republicans were marked in red. Mr. Starr explained that he had done some research before preparing the maps, and had found that the networks had been inconsistent in their coloring through the years. Upon reflection, Mr. Starr said he decided for several reasons to use blue for Democrats and red for Republicans— – he did not want to associate Democrats with Red Communists (the 1996 White House was moving to the political center), and the loss of Blue Dog Democrats had hurt the party in Congress (blue was also the only color associated with a party, so it helped make the decision). The association of these colors and parties was then used among White House political insiders, and spread to the media and then the general public.

Prior to the 2000 presidential election, there was no universally recognized color scheme to represent the parties. 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. 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. 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 new 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.[1]; if anything, the majority of outlets in 1996 were using blue for the GOP and red for the Democrats.

But in 2000, for the first time, all major media outlets used the same colors for each party: Red for Republicans, blue for Democrats. Partly as a result of this first-time 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, and red and blue thus became fixed in the media and in many people's minds.[2] Journalists began to routinely refer to "blue states" and "red states" even before the 2000 election was settled, 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. [3] 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.[4] Otherwise the color scheme is unofficial and informal, but is widely recognized by all 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, especially in Europe and Canada, red is commonly the designated color for parties representing labor and/or leftist interests[5][6], 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 colours are deeply ingrained and historic and have been unchanged during the Twentieth 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 colour blue.