Luke Plunkett. Luke Plunkett is a Contributing Editor based in Canberra, Australia. He has written a book on cosplay, designed a game about airplanes, and also runs. Shop from the worlds largest selection and best deals for Police Collectibles. Shop with confidence on eBay Our Services. About Us Independence Australia is a social enterprise that provides choices for people living with a disability or other personal need, supporting them. Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get. Thin Blue Line Patch Australia' title='Thin Blue Line Patch Australia' />Red states and blue states. Summary of results of the 2. States carried by the Republicans in all four elections  States carried by the Republicans in three of the four elections  States carried by each party twice in the four elections  States carried by the Democrats in three of the four elections  States carried by the Democrats in all four elections. Average margins of victory in the five presidential elections from 1. R 2. 0  R 1. R 31. R lt 3 to D lt 3  D 31. D 1. 02. 0  D 2. Congress Senate party membership by state. Vermont and Maine have one Independent senator each, Bernie Sanders and Angus King respectively. Since the 2. 00. 0 United States presidential election, red states and blue states have referred to states of the United States whose residents predominantly vote for either the Republican Party red or Democratic Party blue presidential candidates. Since then, the use of the term has been expanded to differentiate between states being perceived as liberal and those perceived as conservative. All states contain both liberal and conservative voters i. Electoral College. However, the perception of some states as red and some as blue was reinforced by a degree of partisan stability from election to electionfrom the 2. The choice of colors reverses a long standing convention of political colors whereby red symbols such as the Red Flag or Red Star are associated with left wing politics, and right wing movements often choose blue as a contrasting color. Indeed, until the 1. Republicans were often represented by blue and Democrats by red. The current terminology of red states and blue states came into use in the United States presidential election of 2. Today show on October 3. According to The Washington Post, the terms were coined by journalist Tim Russert, during his televised coverage of the 2. No Soy Un Serial Killer Pdf To Excel. That was not the first election during which the news media used colored maps to depict voter preferences in the various states, but it was the first time a standard color scheme took hold the colors were often reversed or different colors used before the 2. Origins of the color schemeeditBefore the 2. Blue for Republican, Red for Democrat,5 in line with European associations, where red is used for left leaning parties, and blue for the right. The colors red and blue also are featured on the U. S. flag. Traditional political mapmakers, at least throughout the 2. Republicans, as well as the earlier Federalist Party. This may have been a holdover from the American Civil War, during which the predominantly Republican north was considered blue. However, at that time, a maker of widely sold maps accompanied them with blue pencils in order to mark Confederate force movements, while red was for the union. Even earlier, in the 1. Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison used maps that coded blue for the Republicans, the color perceived to represent the Union and Lincolns Party, and red for the Democrats. The parties themselves had no official colors, with candidates variously using either or both of the national color palette of red and blue white being unsuitable for printed materials. There was one historical use, associated with boss rule, of blue for Democrats and red for Republicans in the late 1. Texas county election boards used color coding to help Spanish speakers and illiterates identify the parties 9 however, this system was not applied consistently in Texas and was not replicated in any other state. In 1. 90. 8, The New York Times printed a special color map, using blue for Democrats and yellow for Republicans, to detail Theodore Roosevelts 1. That same year, a color supplement included with a July issue of the Washington Post used red for Republican leaning states, blue for Democratic leaning states, yellow for doubtful states, and green for territories, which had no presidential vote. Contemporary useeditThe advent of color television prompted television news reporters to rely on color coded electoral maps, though sources conflict as to the conventions they followed. One source claims that in the six elections prior to 2. Democrat but one had been coded red. It further claims that from 1. According to another source, in 1. John Chancellor, the anchorman for NBC Nightly News, asked his networks engineers to construct a large illuminated map of the United States. The map was placed in the networks election night news studio. If Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate that year, won a state, it would light up in red if Gerald Ford, the incumbent Republican president, carried a state, it would light up in blue. The feature proved to be so popular that, four years later, all three major television networks would use colors to designate the states won by the presidential candidates on Election Night, though not all using the same color scheme. NBC continued to use the color scheme employed in 1. NBC newsman David Brinkley famously referred to the 1. Republican Ronald Reagans 4. CBS, from the 1. 98. Democrats, red for Republicans. ABC used yellow for Republicans and blue for Democrats in 1. However, in 1. 98. ABC used red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. In 1. 98. 0, when independent John B. Anderson ran a relatively high profile campaign as an independent candidate, at least one network provisionally indicated that they would use yellow if he were to win a state. Similarly, in 1. 99. Ross Perot neither of them did claim any states in any of these years. By 1. 99. 6, color schemes were relatively mixed, as CNN, CBS, ABC, and The New York Times referred to Democratic states with the color blue and Republican ones as red, while Time and The Washington Post used an opposite scheme. In the days following the 2. On Election Night that year, there was no coordinated effort to code Democratic states blue and Republican states red the association gradually emerged. Partly as a result of this eventual and near universal color coding, the terms red states and blue states entered popular use in the weeks following the 2. After the results were final, journalists stuck with the color scheme, as The Atlantics December 2. David Brooks entitled, One Nation, Slightly Divisible, illustrated. Thus, red and blue became fixed in the media and in many peoples minds, despite the fact that no official color choices had been made by the parties. Some Republicans argue the GOP should retain its historic link with blue, since most center right parties worldwide are associated with blue. On March 1. 4, 2. California Republican Party officially rejected Red and adopted Blue as its color. Archie Tse, The New York Times graphics editor who made the choice when the Times published its first color presidential election map in 2. Both Republican and red start with the letter R. Map interpretationedit. The blue and red state color scheme when applied for U. S. state legislative upper house majorities as of 2. Nebraska, in black, has a nonpartisan unicameral legislature. There are several problems in creating and interpreting election maps that should be taken into account. Popular vote data is necessarily aggregated at several levels, such as counties and states, which are then colored to show election results. Maps of this type are called choropleth maps, which have several well known problems that can result in interpretation bias. One problem arises when areal units differ in size and significance, as is the case with election maps. These maps give extra visual weight to larger areal units, whether by county or state. This problem is compounded in that the units are not equally significant. A large county or state may have fewer voters than a small one, for example. Some maps attempt to account for this by using cartogram methods, but the resulting distortion can make such maps difficult to read. Another problem relates to data classification. Latest Topics ZDNet. By registering you become a member of the CBS Interactive family of sites and you have read and agree to the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Video Services Policy. You agree to receive updates, alerts and promotions from CBS and that CBS may share information about you with our marketing partners so that they may contact you by email or otherwise about their products or services. 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