Journalists Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw broadcasting on Election Day 2000 (or more likely in the wee hours of the next day) in front of a map of red and blue U.S. states
2 November 2020
In current American political parlance red represents the Republican Party, blue the Democratic Party, and purple something in between. But it wasn’t always this way. Before the 2000 presidential election, the colors switched back and forth, and the colors weren’t inherently associated with a particular party.
The choice of colors is arbitrary and comes from the electoral maps that television news programs show on their election night coverage. Before 2000, the practice was to represent the incumbent party in blue and the challenger in red. So in the 1992 election, when Democrat Bill Clinton was running against the incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush, the states that went Democratic were shown in red, as can be seen in this Boston Globe article of 15 October 1992 previewing the election night coverage:
But when the anchormen turn to their electronic tote boards election night and the red states for Clinton start swamping the blue states for Bush, this will be a strange night for me.
And in their 2000 election coverage, the networks used the same criterion. Since Democrats held the White House, states that went for Al Gore were blue states, while states that went for the Republican challenger George W. Bush were colored red. Again, from a preview of the coverage on CBS News, this time many months ahead, on 8 May 2000, we see Democratic states designated as blue states:
BRYANT GUMBEL: Let's take a look at the fancy map that you've had us make up. And you—you explain it if you would—the state-by-state support.
CRAIG CRAWFORD: It—it's not as complicated as it might seem. What we have are, you know, Bush and Gore, their core states here. And then the tossup states. You see Bush in—in red and you see the blue states are—are for Gore.
And this from NBC’s Today on 30 October 2000, just prior to the election, uses both blue state and red state:
MATT LAUER: The red states we have here, you have going for Al—I mean for George Bush, the blue states for Al Gore. What does the count look like so far?
TIM RUSSERT: Well, Matt, first the viewer will see a lot more red than blue and they'll say 'Uh-oh, is this race over?' Far from it. The electoral college is based on population. So if you win a lot of states, but they have small numbers of people, it means less than if you win California, Illinois, and the big states that Gore is winning.
As Matt Lauer’s hastily corrected error shows, the fact that the colors were not consistently associated with particular parties from election to election meant that at first glance one might be confused about which party was leading. Even an experienced journalist could be momentarily confused.
But the 2000 election was so close, the election coverage continuing for weeks after Election Day, and the political climate so polarizing, that the terms red state and blue state became locked in as representing the Republicans and Democrats, respectively. And the colors became not only representative of which party a state typically votes for, but became representative of that state’s cultural ethos, as well. From NBC News coverage of George W. Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress on 27 February 2001, following the election. Pennsylvania had voted for Gore in the election:
TOM BROKAW: The country is weary of ideological wars. That was the message of this past election, and both the congressional leaders now and the president of the United States are responding to that.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: A red state president reaching out to…
TIM RUSSERT: Also note, Brian, that the tax family was also from Pennsylvania.
WILLIAMS: That's right.
RUSSERT: It's a swing state.
WILLIAMS: It's a red state president reaching out to a blue state tonight…
And the red state/blue state started to be used outside of political contexts. From a Time magazine obituary for NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt of 5 March 2001:
Dale Earnhardt left school in the ninth grade and entered his first race, legend has it, for grocery money. At the time of his death, his income had reached nearly $27 million a year. Mostly the money came from sales of merchandise: hats, jackets and the No. 3 logo sticker on the back of my family car that occasionally earns me a knowing honk and a wave from a like-minded fan, even during my blue-state commute to New York City.
Of course, not every state votes reliably for either the Democrats or the Republicans, and such swing states came to be designated as purple, a blend of blue and red. From a CNN show of 20 May 2002:
With an exploding and changing population, younger and more diverse by the year, Florida is reliably nothing. In the 2000 election year of red states or blue, Florida was purple. It is up for grabs, in play, a toss-up state, ergo a high traffic area for politicians.
Of course, the color designations are gross over-simplifications. No state is entirely red or blue in its political leanings. For example, Salt Lake City in deeply red Utah reliably votes Democratic, and counties in upstate New York, a state that is deeply blue overall, reliably vote Republican. The more accurate division would be blue urban areas, red exurban and rural areas, and purple suburban areas. Whether a state is blue, red, or purple largely depends on the relative populations living in these three areas.
Sources:
“The Early Show.” CBS News Transcripts, 8 May 2000. Nexis Uni.
Glowka, Wayne, et al. “Among the New Words.” American Speech, 80.2, Summer 2005, 207–15.
Nyhan, David. “Ending Up in the Clinton Column.” Boston Globe (City Edition), 15 October 1992, 19. ProQuest.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2009, s.v. red state, n. and adj.; June 2009, s.v. blue state, n. and adj.; September 2007, purple, adj. and n.
Snow, Kate, et al. “Miami; Bush Denounces Castro; Cuban-Americans Applaud Bush's Decision; Cuban Dissidents Criticize.” CNN, 20 May 2002. Nexis Uni.
Sullivan, Robert, et al. “The Last Lap.” Time, 157.9, 5 March 2001, 67. EBSCOhost Academic Search Ultimate.
“Today.” NBC News Transcripts, 30 October 2000. Nexis Uni.
Williams, Brian, et al. “President Bush Takes His Policy Agenda Before Congress. MSNBC Show: The News with Brian Williams, 27 February 2001, Nexis Uni.
Photo credit: NBC News, 7–8 November 2000.