# Where'd Red vs Blue come from, anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 13, 2004, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whered-red-vs-blue-come-from-anyway/274495 "2004-11-13T00:57:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whered-red-vs-blue-come-from-anyway/274495/21 "2004-11-15T07:30:29Z")
[This link](http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/) has some different ways of looking at those red and blue (and purple) states. Scroll down. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whered-red-vs-blue-come-from-anyway/274495/22 "2004-11-15T07:39:16Z")
Can I pose a highjack-ish question, as the OP seems to have been more-or-less answered? How did the colour red _not_ acquire left-wing associations in the USA over the past century, unlike in most of the world? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whered-red-vs-blue-come-from-anyway/274495/23 "2004-11-15T10:39:36Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > OK, so in this quote: > “Pissing off 51% of the people who might know the answer to your question is…” by moderator bibliophage, is he claiming that 51% of SMDB readers voted for Bush? Ah come on! You know full well that **Bibliophage** wasn’t claiming any such thing. For one thing he didn’t say “…51% of the people _reading this forum_ who might know the answer…”, didn’t mention the SMDB at all in fact.\* I’m glad someone asked this question. I hadn’t really come across the blue vs red thing before but everyone seemed to be treating it as an ingrained tradition. Thanks for posting **Harwell** , hope you get a feel for the place in time and maybe become a member. \*In retrospect, I think you probably wooshed me. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whered-red-vs-blue-come-from-anyway/274495/24 "2004-11-15T11:43:35Z")
According to Wikipedia, there is no official standard. But you can read some of the history behind it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue\_states](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_states) ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whered-red-vs-blue-come-from-anyway/274495/25 "2004-11-15T13:33:59Z")
> [@dqa](#): > > Cite? > > I have a cite to the contrary: [NY Times](http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/ARTICLES/redblue.php) The thing is, I think the standard “red vs blue” thing is recent; newspapers, until recently, were largely black and white. Television wasn’t the main news medium, and color television has only become universal in the past couple decades. If there were no standards until the 90s or so, it wouldn’t be a shock. ---
**Author:** ![Amok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@Amok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amok)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whered-red-vs-blue-come-from-anyway/274495/26 "2004-11-15T17:23:52Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > How did the colour red _not_ acquire left-wing associations in the USA over the past century, unlike in most of the world? It did, in a way. But in the US it wasn’t associated with the left so much as it was associated with communism. The Soviets were often called “the reds” and stuff like that. Socialism was sometimes associated with pink (e.g. “pinkos”). So, the Democrats were never associated with red (and the two primary parties had no color association until very recently), even though they were the primary left-wing party in the US, because that color was seen as exclusively a color of communism. And of course, by the time 2000 rolled around, communism was dead and forgotten. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whered-red-vs-blue-come-from-anyway/274495.md?page=1)