# Origin of red and blue states **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2021, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119 "2021-11-29T07:17:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/21 "2021-11-29T16:49:39Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > n a slightly alternate universe, we’d be talking about plaid states versus green states. Or paisley vs. polka dots. That might be fun. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/22 "2021-11-29T18:28:46Z")
I remember Tim Russert starting it, though it didn’t seem at the time like he was trying to start something permanent. I was very interested in the 2000 election. Unfortunately, I spent some time in Germany during the recount and court case, so it wasn’t much on the news there (and certainly not in English). I kept begging coworkers to let me log into their computers to use their web browsers to check CNN, which I think was still fairly new. And their computers have these funny keyboards, not QWERTY exactly. But Russert was doing it, and then everybody else just seemed to adopt it. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/23 "2021-11-29T18:45:42Z")
Just adding that I too remember when ‘red=Republican, blue=Democrat’ was not used. In my recollection, the incumbent party was the Blue party and the challenging party was the Red party. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/24 "2021-11-29T18:48:10Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > In my recollection, the incumbent party was the Blue party and the challenging party was the Red party No, there was never such a general rule. Maybe a particular organization had such a rule ,but it was specific to that organizatin. It was truly completely arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/25 "2021-11-29T18:57:23Z")
Right. As previously mentioned, in 1980 when Carter (the Democrat) was the incumbent, at least one network had his states as red, and Reagan (the challenger) as blue (hence the comment that the map looked like as blue as a suburban swimming pool) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/26 "2021-11-29T19:57:22Z")
previous thread on this, from way back in 2004: > [@Red/Blue state coloration?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-blue-state-coloration/270864/): > > A friend mentioned to me that some radio host (Laura Ingraham, I think) was complaining that “the Democrats stole the color blue for their states”. Which is just silly…but, oddly enough, I recall having seen some explanation (in one of the political threads a couple months ago) as to why the colors red and blue were chosen. Something to do with standard statistical conventions that dealt with how to represent values/numbers in graphical format. The post also mentioned that the red/blue should be… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/27 "2021-11-29T21:24:03Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Or paisley vs. polka dots. That might be fun. That would be Irish Unionist vs… something German. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/28 "2021-11-30T02:54:27Z")
Dave Leips excellent site uses blue for Republican, red for Democrat, and green and yellow for Libertarians, independents and such. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/29 "2021-11-30T07:53:14Z")
Just throwing in that Monty Python’s classic “Election Night Special” has a consistent colour scheme (as far as candidates’ ribbons are concerned) for the Sensible Party, the Silly Party, and also the minor third Slightly Silly Party. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/30 "2021-11-30T08:12:47Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > I was very interested in the 2000 election. Unfortunately, I spent some time in Germany during the recount and court case, so it wasn’t much on the news there (and certainly not in English). I kept begging coworkers to let me log into their computers to use their web browsers to check CNN, which I think was still fairly new. And their computers have these funny keyboards, not QWERTY exactly. I was in (German) high school at the time, and I remember watching American election coverage in my English class. The chain of events was certainly taken note of in Germany, and I remember it being on the news for weeks, but probably not as intensely as it was in America. Generally, I believe American elections get a lot of media attention here - not just the general election itself but also that year of primaries before. Oh, and tell me about the keyboards. The German QWERTZ keyboard is reasonably close to the English QWERTY, but differences exist beyond the switched Y and Z keys (most importantly for punctuation). I use both alternatingly for work, and I will often mistype because I forgot to change settings. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/31 "2021-11-30T12:30:51Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Oh, and tell me about the keyboards. The German QWERTZ keyboard is reasonably close to the English QWERTY, but differences exist beyond the switched Y and Z keys (most importantly for punctuation). I use both alternatingly for work, and I will often mistype because I forgot to change settings. Back in the 1970s my mom (a touchtyper) needed to borrow a typewriter from a neighbor - whose typewriter was (like the neighbor) from Germany. Hilarit **z** ensued ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119/32 "2021-11-30T12:51:16Z")
The cool thing about German keyboards is, of course, that they come with separate keys for the umlauts. You can type heavy metal band names like Mötley Crüe directly, no need for ASCII or Unicode numbers or the like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-red-and-blue-states/955119.md?page=1)