# why are republicans red and democrats blue **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-republicans-red-and-democrats-blue/272928 "2004-11-04T05:33:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![qubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f07891/32.png) [@qubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qubed)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-republicans-red-and-democrats-blue/272928/1 "2004-11-04T05:33:51Z")
This came up briefly in another thread, but I figure it needs more attention. It seems widely known that republican states are red states and democratic states are blue. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states) says: > [@](#): > > Originally, the color assignments alternated every four years. In the hotly-contested election of 2000, it was the Republicans’ turn for red and the Democrats’ turn for blue; and because the resulting map for that year (shown at right) revealed that support for each party followed a sharply defined geographical pattern, it has since become customary to refer to the Republican-leaning states as red states and the Democratic strongholds as blue states. Now, since I’m a bit young, I can’t remember this. These days, it seems so ingrained that republicans = red and democrats = blue, that it seems odd that just four years ago, this wasn’t true. Can anyone verify that this is true? And maybe add some evidence to why this suddenly in 2000 this ‘flip-flopping’ ceased? ---
**Author:** ![constantine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@constantine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constantine)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-republicans-red-and-democrats-blue/272928/2 "2004-11-04T06:08:19Z")
I don’t have any cites but my memory jibes with what the Wikipedia says. I remember that it used to alternate. Previous elections (that I remember) were all pretty one sided. The 2000 election was, as we all know, much closer, and so I think that led to much more discussion all through the first term of the Bush presidency, about red states and blue states. I always suspected that the reason they alternated was the association between red and communism (e.g. the red menace or red baiting). If the news media used Red to refer to one party, they might be accused of bias, so they switched every election. ---
**Author:** ![Bleaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Bleaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bleaker)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-republicans-red-and-democrats-blue/272928/3 "2004-11-04T07:41:03Z")
There was [an article](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17079-2004Nov1.html) about this in the Washington Post on Tuesday. It posits Tim Russert as the originator of the “red state”/“blue state” terminology, and confirms that the colors were often the other way around in the past. I’ve seen some people suggest that the incumbent party is traditionally blue, but I don’t recall whether that was ever true. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-republicans-red-and-democrats-blue/272928/4 "2004-11-04T12:28:53Z")
This topic was discusssed a week or two ago, so I’ll close this thread and direct further comment to the earlier thread: [Red/Blue state coloration?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=282600) bibliophage moderator GQ