[Paladin2]

Red has long been the Commie Color.

This blue/Red State thing needs to be switched.

[Ouderkirk]

This blue/Red State thing needs to be switchedback.

Fixed it.

Tim Russert did this in 2000. because AlGore was such a communist that they had to change it.

[HombreSecreto]

You are so right. It needs to be switched back.

Take a look on Youtube for the 1980, 1984 and 1988 election results. You’ll see the GOP states were blue and the commie Democrat states were Red.

The MSM switched the colors in 1992 because they wanted to blur the truth. Been that way ever since.

[RedStateRocker]

My hearing aids- red is the right one, blue the left....

[Hatteras]

Wasn’t blue always used to designate the incumbent candidate and then After Clinton (Bush/Gore Campaign) the media stuck with blue for the Dems?

[Cheerio]

This blue/Red State thing needs to be switched.It used to be the other way around.

When Republicans Were Blue and Democrats Were Red

The era of color-coded political parties is more recent than you might think

[enumerated]

For 30 years from 1976 to 2004, the networks alternated every four years between blue and red for the incumbant party. There is no official written evidence that this was purposeful, but the colors used by the networks did alternate - perhaps out of respect for the fact that niether party liked the commie association with red. Before 1976, the networks did not follow any color system with electoral maps - some didn’t use colored maps, and when they did, the colors varied from network to network and were not limited to red or blue.

So, the following incumbents were assigned colors as follows: Ford was blue in 1976, Carter was red in 1980, Reagan was blue in 1984, Bush Sr. was red in 1988, Bush Sr. was blue in 1992, Clinton was red in 1996, Gore was blue in 2000.

In 2004 Bush Jr. should have been red, and was, but probably for the wrong reason (see below). In 2008, McCain should have been blue, but was red. In 2012, Obama should have been red, but was blue. In 2016, Hillary Clinton should have been blue, and was.

I believe that in the 2000 election squeaker, “red state” / “blue state” became such a meme, that the color associations got “set in concrete”; R was red and D was blue, and the alternating scheme was forgotten. Really, McCain and Romney are the only candidates so far that have been screwed out of their right to be blue (both times by Obama, who should have been red as challenger in 2008 and then as incumbent in 2012. Trump would have been red in 2016 anyway. As incumbent in 2020, Trump would be red again under the old system.

I doubt it will ever switch back to an alternating system now that the “red state”, “blue state” meme is so firmly established in the political lexicon. If they were to resume the old system, and assuming Trump is reelected in 2020, it would be Pence’s turn in 2024 (or whoever the Republicans run as incumbant), to be blue.

[Don W]

It used to be that the incumbents were in blue, and the newly elected/changed seats were in red. That changed with the election of Ronald Reagan, when the press seemingly coincidentally started with republicans red and democRats blue.
It’s been like that ever since.