Talk:Red states and blue states

message: Stop kidding yourselves.  It is acutely obvious that the major media networks, who are obviously Left-leaning and Democratic-leaning, reversed the color scheme in order to support the Democratic party in the wake of President Reagan's political domination of the 1980s.  Any assertion to the contrary, to paraphrase the comments below under "Nebraska Map," is just ludicrous.  The traditional color scheme of Democrats as Red makes perfect sense.  The Democrats have been the Left-leaning U.S. party for at least a century, and Red has been the international color of the Political Left for 2 centuries.  I am a Baby-boomer and watched the Dem-Red maps on TV for three decades before they were flipped.  If I wanted to spend the time, I am sure I could find independent credible sources to cite in the Article.  I would also qualify any citation attributed to contemporary Network News editors who naturally were never going to own up to their true motives for the color reversal. Jrgilb (talk) 04:06, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: If it is a leftist conspiracy, as you claim without citation, why do conservative news networks go along with it? --2600:1008:B044:E04A:5980:1AD4:B2A9:E1B9 (talk) 09:37, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: because they think it's an innocuous connection of Red and Republican with it's Rs but this isn't a very good idea seeing how red has always been the lefty color 5.32.63.86 (talk) 07:36, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Media bias

message: It is quite telling that anyone who is making an argument against the collaboration of the news with the Democratic party to flip the long standing color schemes, (Blue Republican and Red for Democrat), is in a state of absolute denial (or simply dishonest).  This is a "prima facia" historical fact.  I grew up through the 70s and 80s and 90s and yes the 2000s and witnesses the this "3 card monte" attept. Im the one who got this whole argument started years ago on Wiki, and after 5 years plus I am glad to see the intellectual left leaning knuckle heads who primarily dominate Wiki, have been corrected (yet still spin the wording to downplay the verocity of this collective effort of the left to hide its true intentions.  For a very long time they obsessively would remove all mention of this fact.  Left leaning people (its ok to be red) be proud of your convictions, you don't have to stay in the closet.
The Nebraska Legislature, while nonpartisan and unicameral, the members do have "unofficial" party affiliations, as listed in the Nebraska Legislature article.  It would be nice if the state legislature maps were updated to reflect that.  Black implies that there's nothing to be said, but that's not true.  67.169.32.224 (talk) 05:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Nebraska Map

message: Hello all,
I added the 2nd district of Nebraska to the map and caption. The Dems won in 08  and the GOP won in 2000  and 2004 . As for 1996, I couldn't find the result by district online except for Dave Leip's site (and its member only). As a last resort, I've made two assumptions:
1) Accordding to a Nebraska map in the 106th Congress edition of the Congressional Directory, the old NE-02 consisted of all of Douglas and Sarpy counties, and tiny corner of Cass county . Dave Leip's figures show that Bob Dole won all three places by double digits . This means a GOP victory in NE-02 was likely. If a Nebraskan Wikipedian has access to a good library with State publications, could they confirm this?
2) A bunch of sources from our article, the FEC, Presidentelect.org, and NARA's Electoral College site all show Bob Dole winning all of Nebraska's electoral votes. None of them show a Clinton victory in any district.
This is the reason NE-02 is pink on the map. - Thanks, Hoshie 06:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edit: NE-02 

message: Consider this line: "In the 2008 elections both parties received at least 40% from all sizable socio-economic demographics, according to exit polling."
In the table immediately below, we see that McCain failed to receive 40% by the two income groupings of <$30K/yr.
Note that these are "sizable socio-economic demographics" - and show a strong preference for Obama among the economically disadvantaged -- directly contradicting the point being implied in the line I quoted.
What that line implies is that economic factors were not significant in voters choosing between the two candidates -- and yet the facts in the table below it clearly say otherwise!
Therefore I have modified it with an addendum pinpointing the two income groups that are an exception. ToolmakerSteve (talk) 18:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole demographics section seems out of the scope of the article. 198.151.130.64 (talk) 00:49, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Over-generalization not valid 

message: where is mention of Karl Rove?  His role in creating the whole red state-blue state myth should definitely be here.Gold1618 (talk) 04:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Uhh... something big is missing

message: "This unofficial system of political colors used in the United States is the reverse of that in most other long-established democracies, where red represents right-wing and conservative parties, and blue represents left-wing and social democratic parties."
Shouldn't this be the other way around? I would change it but I have a tendency to mess up the simplest of things.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.133.227.193 (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in opening 

message: 'Before the 2000 presidential election, the traditional color coding scheme was "Blue for Republican, Red for Democrat,"...'
My recollection is that the US television networks used this scheme through the 1984 elections, switching it for either the mid-term elections in 1986 or the 1988 elections.  An example of this can be seen in a video clip of CBS news; both ABC and NBC were using the same scheme by 1988 as well.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by FenwayFrank (talk • contribs) 16:59, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Color switch 

message: Can we have some clarification of what the "Average margins of presidential victory" means in the concluding section? What sort of data does this refer to? Percentage, votes, what? 129.15.127.50 (talk) 11:52, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Purple States data 

message: There is no key to this map, what are the green slashes indicating in New England? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:13, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Key to map 

message: I was actually just passing through this article on the way to finding some information elsewhere, and it caught my eye that some formatting characters (specifically "|}") were simply floating at the top of the article. Cutting a potentially long story short, I found that this edit, while almost certainly in good faith, unfortunately mangled a lot of the page formatting. I decided to simply erase the scraps left behind rather than try to sort out whether the edit should be reverted. Someone more invested in this article should probably double-check all of this to see if things are acceptable as they now stand. --BBrucker2 (talk) 13:12, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Well-intended but bad edit? 

message: This article indicates that 1976 was the first year a TV network used a live light-up map to show results as they came in. However, there appears to be such a map in CBS's coverage of the [[United States presidential election, 1968. See  at 11:40, and  at 10:40. Are there any sources that discuss this map? Was there a color version of the broadcast, and if so, what colors were used? 174.240.35.66 (talk) 07:51, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  1968 Election night coverage 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Red states and blue states. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20061122124004/http://www.princeton.edu/~petehill/time-election-map-1996.jpg to http://www.princeton.edu/~petehill/time-election-map-1996.jpg
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080624204202/http://www.aei.org/docLib/20080229_BillBishop.pdf to http://www.aei.org/docLib/20080229_BillBishop.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20061002041317/http://www.dccc.org/news/Red_to_Blue/index.html to http://www.dccc.org/news/Red_to_Blue/index.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 09:40, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There should be a table showing the margin of victory in each state, like the data used to make https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_and_Blue_States_Map_(Average_Margins_of_Presidential_Victory).svg  The image was obviously made with this data, but I can't find a table anywhere.  Should be updated to include 2016, too.  71.167.63.96 (talk) 16:55, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Data for charts 

message: The background color for both of President Clinton's national popular vote totals should be light blue, not dark.  He did not get a majority in either election- close in '96, but technically, still a plurality: 43.01% and 49.23%.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:A8DA:C800:7D0B:65AD:411C:E570 (talk) 04:31, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clinton colors  in table 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 4 external links on Red states and blue states. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17079-2004Nov1.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130403145047/http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/09/03/red.blue.states/index.html to http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/09/03/red.blue.states/index.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080403144623/http://www.barackobama.com/2004/07/27/keynote_address_at_the_2004_de.php to http://www.barackobama.com/2004/07/27/keynote_address_at_the_2004_de.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100818112308/http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~sara/html/mapping/election/map.html to http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~sara/html/mapping/election/map.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:14, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This in my opinion is better color system, and I like how uselectionatlas uses this system.  Wikipedia should transition.RRGGBB00FF (talk) 13:45, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  wikipedia should switch to Blue for Republicans and Red for Democrats 

message: I know that of all people we “Wikipedians” should easily recognize all states by their shapes. But some of us are a bit more aged than others lol I’m 58, and my school days are farther away than I care to ponder. So I just wanted to suggest, based on my own needs in viewing this map (all political for me) that state names—abbreviated if needed—be added. Thank you for your consideration. You guys do a wonderful job! Dbreyna (talk) 02:07, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usefulness of map 

message: I just don't understand it. It's just colors. Americans like to use the colors red, white, and blue for anything and everything we possibly can. Given this, it's basically a coin flip as to which of the two major parties would wind up with red and which with blue. With the obvious influencing factor of R for red and R for Republican perhaps tipping the scales. Maybe it's the lack of other significant parties in American politics that has prevented the entrenchment of the color symbolism the rest of the world is used to? --Khajidha (talk) 15:13, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: because it's completely wrong with global standards and basic logic. red is the color of the socialists and lefties. blue is the color of the conservatives. this is the case EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD EXCEPT THE USA. 5.32.63.86 (talk) 07:34, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: 1) Why do global standards matter for national election maps? Non-Americans neither run nor vote in US elections, so why does any non-American care what colors we make our maps? 2) Red, white, and blue are also the national colors of the United States. With paper being white, that leaves red and blue for the colors. This association of red with socialism and blue with conservatives just isn't all that common in the US. Especially not that of blue with conservatives. 3) The "rest of the world does it this way" has never been a very persuasive argument in the US. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:19, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: en.Wikipedia is used globally, not just in the US. While I am sympathetic to your argument in point 3, it still remains that we are contrary to a global norm in this regard (sort of like the whole metric thing, but that is a different discussion for a different time). And while our national colors are red, white, and blue, you might want to talk to the Britons, French, Dutch, Russian, Croatian, Dominicans (I can go on) who also use those national colors. Horologium (talk) 21:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think you understood my points at all. 1) at no point did I suggest that non-Americans should not use Wikipedia or that the usage on maps from other countries be changed, 2) nor did I suggest that that other countries couldn't have red, white and blue as colors. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:36, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

text: I guess my question actually boils down to "why do so many people try to associate the colors with a position on the political spectrum as opposed to just associating a particular color with a particular party?" I mean, why worry about this any more than you would what color each country is on a world map? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:43, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why does the "blue Democrats/red Republicans" model seem to upset so many people here? 

message: According to the table, NM voted Democratic in the last four elections, but the map shows it pink. Which is correct? 174.195.11.182 (talk) 02:09, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Mexico 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
* 
Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:08, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: ...for many years in the South, when it voted mostly Democratic (until the election when George Wallace ran as an independent, starting the end of the Democratic hold over the South), there were conservative Democrats that would occasionally vote with the Republicans on certain issues; they picked up the name "Blue-dog Democrats" for voting with the Blue, or conservative side; comments? Ajpajpajp1 (talk) 01:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  ...Blue-dog Democrats 

message: "Red" and "blue" are now used regularly not just for states, but for other political units: people talk about red and blue counties, or red and blue congressional districts; the former in particular are used heavily in state election maps (including those on Wikipedia). I think there should be some mention of this. marbeh raglaim (talk) 01:18, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansions of the "red" and "blue" designation beyond states