One problem arises when areal units differ in size and significance, as is the case with election maps. Result of the US Election 2020 - Animated Map Showing Red and Blue States by SpaceStockFootage2. elections. 38.84. 14.61. 35.04. Even though oldest maps known are with the skies, geographical maps of territory have a very very long tradition and exist in ancient times. The Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI) shown in the table below is a measurement of how strongly a United States congressional district or states leans toward the Democratic or Republican Party compared to the national average. Feelings of cultural and political polarization between red and blue states, which have gained increased media attention since the 2004 election, have led to increased mutual feelings of alienation and enmity. Montana. [19] Some Republicans argue the GOP should retain its historic link with blue, since most center-right parties worldwide are associated with blue. "No, this map won't do," comments reader Dicken Schrader. [1] NBC newsman David Brinkley famously referred to the 1980 election map outcome showing Republican Ronald Reagan's 44-state landslide as resembling a "suburban swimming pool".[14]. 33.94. The 2004 election showed two of these three states to be true to the presidential preferences of their respective regions, creating a greater regional separation; thus, an argument that the country was more divided from the 2000 election. An even more detailed precinct-by-precinct breakdown demonstrates that in many cases, large cities voted for Obama, and their suburbs were divided. The interactive presidential election map is showing the results of the 2020 presidential election as states are called by the Associated Press. Red States on U.S. This includes Wyoming, the most conservative state in the United States, with a PVI of R+25. There are several problems in creating and interpreting election maps. Winner chosen by the House of Representatives Minnesota, New York, and Maryland show this example, with some exceptions. This may have been a holdover from the Civil War, during which the predominantly Republican north was considered "blue". ABC used yellow for Republicans and blue for Democrats in 1976, then red for Republicans and blue for Democrats in 1980, 1984, and 1988. McCain held the more suburban and rural areas of both the red and blue states, while Obama received the large majority of the urban city areas in all the states. [9] 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 that had no presidential vote.[10]. Deeply red South Dakota ranks among the most successful states, with 54% of its population getting injections. 14.29. "[27] Arguably, this eventually proved to be somewhat true, but not in McCain's favor as Obama won three "red" states that had not voted Democratic in many years, namely Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana along with a part of deep red Nebraska, via the state's (much less conservative as a whole) second congressional district. Later, in the 1888 presidential election, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison used maps that coded blue for the Republicans, the color perceived to represent the Union and "Lincoln's Party", and red for the Democrats. However, there are pros and cons to both classified and unclassified choropleth maps. The PVI for that state is R+9. [24] Large areas of color appear more saturated than small areas of the same color. [44], The choice of colors in this divide may appear counter-intuitive to non-American observers, as in most countries, red is associated with socialist, communist, or social democratic parties, while blue is associated with conservative parties. The analysis that suggests political, cultural and demographic differences between the states is more accurate when applied to smaller geographical areas. Quickly thereafter, the term Purple America permeated the political blogosphere and entered the public lexicon as a way of stating that the United States is not as divided as the political pundits would have the people believe. During the 1980s, the colors were reversed and red states were democratic while blue states were republican. If Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate that year, won a state, it lit up in red whereas if Gerald Ford, the incumbent Republican president, carried a state, it was in blue. Both provided Obama with double-digit margins of victory over McCain. This means that red states believe in a smaller, deregulated government and have an aversion to rapid change. NBC continued its color scheme (blue for Republicans) until 1996. Image: Dicken Schrader. Republican The lack of clear classes make these purple maps highly prone to the problems of color perception described above. Differing shades of red and blue compound this effect.[25]. ET Blue and red states have several demographic differences from each other. Of the 50 U.S. states, 24 have democratic governors -- let's call them "blue states" -- and 26 "red states" have republican governors. [1] According to The Washington Post, journalist Tim Russert coined these terms during his televised coverage of the 2000 presidential election. It further claims that from 1976 to 2004 in an attempt to avoid favoritism in color-coding the broadcast networks standardized on the convention of alternating every four years between blue and red the color used for the incumbent president's party. Posted on January 13, 2021 January 13, 2021. 13.56 These “dark red” states can also include Utah (R+20), Oklahoma (R+20), West Virginia (R+19), and Idaho (R+19). Orange States. Daily Infections Per 100k. [citation needed] After the 2004 election, Vanderbei and then others made similar maps summarizing the results. As a group, young adults under age 40 sided with Obama. In 2021, Republicans will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 23 states. A county-level division between red and blue, with contiguous territories for both. The colors red and blue are also featured on the United States flag. During the U.S. Presidential Election in 2000, journalist Tim Russert used the terms “red state” and “blue state” based on the colored maps used during his televised coverage of the election. In the days following the 2000 election, whose outcome was unclear for some time after election day, major media outlets began conforming to the same color scheme because the electoral map was continually in view, and conformity made for easy and instant viewer comprehension. During the Bush administration, the red-blue map was criticized by some[31] for exaggerating the perceived support for President Bush. New Jersey. [45][46][47], U.S. states that vote predominantly for Democrats (blue) or Republicans (red), "Red state" and "Blue state" redirect here. Since around the 2000 United States presidential election, red states and blue states have referred to states of the United States whose voters predominantly choose either the Republican Party (red) or Democratic Party (blue) presidential and senatorial candidates. Generally, the same held true for married versus single women, but a higher percentage of women overall voted for Obama than for McCain. Image: Dicken Schrader. by Alabama News Network Staff … The term is also used to describe a state that is perceived to have conservative views. Forty-seven of the 50 states were consistent in voting for George W. Bush or his Democratic opponent in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. [12] 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 1996 election. "No, this map won't do," comments reader Dicken Schrader. [11] Indeed, as late as the 1990s, Democrats were often represented by red and Republicans by blue. Cartographers have traditionally limited the number of classes so that it is always clear which class a color shade represents. Delaware. Alabama News Network Staff, Posted: Apr 15, 2021 6:33 AM CDT. A county-level division between red and blue, with contiguous territories for both. Observe and analyze voting patterns in US presidential elections 2. [30] It attempts to reflect the margin of victory in each county by coloring each with a shade between true blue and true red. [34][35][36] In 1976, only 27 percent of U.S. voters lived in landslide counties, which increased to 39 percent by 1992. California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; District of Columbia; Florida; Hawaii (effective Jan. 1, 2020) Illinois; Indiana; Maryland; Massachusetts This map was reprinted in US News & World Report a few months prior to the 2004 election. Well, perhaps it’s less red states vs. blue states, here shown in two views of the divisions between Democrats (blue) and Republicans (red)–by data here parsed at county level and by intensity of affinities–map a deep set of social divides that have strikingly played out in weirdly clear geographical blocks in presidential elections. The converse can also be true, as in the case of Maine, which had two Republican U.S. senators, but Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry won the state's electoral votes. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. There was one historical use, associated with boss rule, of blue for Democrats and red for Republicans: in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Texas county election boards used color-coding to help Spanish-speaking and illiterate voters identify the parties;[8] however, this system was not applied consistently in Texas and was not replicated in any other state. 14.01. Description: Map of red states and blue states in the U.S. Red=The Republican candidate carried the state in all four most recent presidential elections (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016). Catholic and Protestant Christians were more likely to vote for McCain than for Obama, whereas voters of other faiths, as well as secular atheist and agnostic voters, predominantly favored Obama. Archie Tse, The New York Times graphics editor who made the choice when the Times published its first color presidential election map in 2000, provided a nonpolitical rationale for retaining the red–Republican link, explaining that "Both 'Republican' and 'red' start with the letter 'R. 14.96. The advent of color television in America in the late 1950s and early 1960s prompted television news reporters to rely on color-coded electoral maps, though sources conflict as to the conventions they followed. [23], Finally, there are problems associated with human perception. These county-by-county and district-by-district maps reveal that the true nature of the divide is between urban areas and inner suburbs, on the one hand, and rural and exurban areas on the other. Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election by taking 100 electoral votes from this 'blue wall' and flipping them. This problem is compounded in that the units are not equally significant. In the 2008 elections, both parties received at least 40% from all sizable socioeconomic demographics, except that McCain (Republican) received 37% from voters earning $15,000–$30,000, and 25% from voters earning under $15,000, according to exit polling. [24] A juxtaposition of differing colors and shades can result in contrast misperceptions. The paradigm has come under criticism on several fronts. McCain got a slight majority (52% to 47%) of households consisting of married couples; Obama led almost 2–1 (65% to 33%) among unmarried voters. The association between colors and demographics was notably made in a column by Mike Barnicle,[citation needed] and reinforced in a controversial response from Paul Begala,[citation needed] though the association between demographics and voting patterns was well known before that. Some maps attempt to account for this by using cartogram methods, but the resulting distortion can make such maps difficult to read. Electoral Map Lagging on Vaccinations. These “dark red” states can also include Utah (R+20), Oklahoma (R+20), West Virginia … If a state is a “red state,” the voters within that state primarily vote for the Republican Party. The data shown here reflects known or documented … Red states desire to preserve the political philosophy and regulations articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and preserve traditional morality, such as that in the Bible. In April 2008, Republican presidential nominee John McCain predicted that the presidential election that November would not follow the red-state-blue-state pattern, saying, "I'm not sure that the old red state, blue state scenario that prevailed for the last several elections works. Polarization is more evident on a county scale with the growing percentage of the U.S. population living in "landslide counties", counties where the popular vote margin between the Democratic and Republican candidate is 20 percentage points or greater. For example, due to the simultaneous contrast effect, the Bezold effect, and other factors, an area shaded light red surrounded by areas shaded dark red will appear even lighter. Data is updated daily. 49.13. Which states have implemented red flag laws? The choices of color and shading likewise affect the map's appearance. As this map illustrates, red states are deeply dependent upon the federal government for money while blue states tend to pay more taxes than they receive in benefits. The Democratic and Republican parties within a particular state may have a platform that departs—sometimes greatly—from that of the national party, sometimes leading that state to favor one party in state and local elections and the other in presidential elections. [18], Thus, red and blue became fixed in the media and in many people's minds, despite the fact that the Democratic and Republican parties had not officially chosen colors. Puerto Rico. In the 2000 election, Bush received a smaller share of the popular vote than Al Gore, and four years later defeated John Kerry in this count by less than two and a half percentage points. Maps of this type are called choropleth maps, which have several well-known problems that can result in interpretation bias. A purple state refers to a swing state where both Democratic and Republican candidates receive strong support without an overwhelming majority of support for either party. Trump doesn’t […] By Red-State Secession. For example, the major center-right conservative parties in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Italy, Spain and France all use blue or its shades (whether officially or unofficially) whereas the major socialist, communist, or social democratic parties in each country are associated with red. Similarly, at least one network would have used yellow to indicate a state won by Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, though neither of them did claim any states in any of these years. Read and interpret data Essential Question: What makes voting patterns change over time? These maps give extra visual weight to larger areal units, whether by county or state. [37][38] Nearly half of U.S. voters resided in counties that voted for Bush or Kerry by 20 percentage points or more in 2004. In the 3 presidential elections since 2008, in those of 2012 and 2016, Nebraskans voted for Republican candidates, and in 2020, the 2nd district flipped back to the Democrat. Download Map. One problem arises when areal units differ in size and significance, as is the case with election maps. We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states. Both parties have since adopted logos that use their respective colors (a blue "D" for Democrats[42] and a white "GOP" with a red elephant for Republicans). Traditional political mapmakers, at least throughout the 20th century, had used blue to represent the modern-day Republicans, as well as the earlier Federalist Party. In One Chart The ‘red’ states on this map are putting the rest of the country at risk amid the spreading coronavirus pandemic Published: April 4, 2020 at 11:32 a.m. While there are various techniques available, the choice is essentially arbitrary. While the red-blue paradigm encourages hardening into ideological camps, political parties, candidates in those parties and individuals members of those parties have a variety of positions and outlooks—nearly every town, city and patch of farmland in the country is "purple", a mix of neighbors, friends and family, each of whose own mixed political preferences tip the scale to vote for one side or the other in a contest. These "purple maps" are useful for showing the highly mixed nature of voting, but are extremely difficult to interpret in detail. Likewise, Republicans have elected many statewide officeholders in states that are solidly Democratic at the presidential level, such as Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland, and Vermont. [3][4] However, the perception of some states as "blue" and some as "red" was reinforced by a degree of partisan stability from election to election—from the 2000 election to the 2004 election, only three states changed "color" and as of 2020, fully 35 out of 50 states have voted for the same party in every presidential election since the red-blue terminology was popularized in 2000. [1] The feature proved to be so popular that, four years later, all three major television networks used colors to designate the states won by the presidential candidates, though not all using the same color scheme. According to Gallup Daily tracking numbers in 2017, a total of 13 states are solid Republican. Micronesia, Federated States of; Montserrat; Nigeria; New Zealand; Palau; Saba; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Pierre and Miquelon; Sierra Leone; Samoa; … Many argue that assigning partisanship to states is only really useful as it pertains to the Electoral College, as well as (more recently) the Senate, primarily a winner-take-all system of elections (with the exceptions of Nebraska and Maine). Red states desire to preserve the political philosophy and regulations articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and preserve traditional morality, such as that in the Bible. Blue states, like California, New York and Illinois, whose economies turn on finance, trade and knowledge, are generally richer than red states. Further, all election maps are subject to the interpretation error known as the ecological fallacy. One to 9 is yellow; between 10 and 24 is orange; and 25 and above puts you in the red. Explained! 2 Number of confirmed cases per 100,000 Americans Various different maps, such as ones which coded states based on the strength of their support for one candidate or another, ones which gave results based on county, or ones which displayed states according to the size of their population, were proposed as correctives to this perceived flaw. In 2008, college graduates were split equally; those with postgraduate degrees voted for Obama by an 18% margin. The exceptions were New Mexico (Al Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004), Iowa (Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004), and New Hampshire (Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004). A new federal report published by The New York Times has found that 21 U.S. states now have coronavirus outbreaks serious enough to place them in the "red … For the GOP, this represented 179 electoral votes. Although the Electoral College determines the presidential election, a more precise measure of how the country actually voted may be better represented by either a county-by-county or a district-by-district map. Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps. In his address before the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Barack Obama spoke on the issue of blue states and red states, saying: "The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into red states and blue states — red states for Republicans, and blue states for Democrats. During the 1980s, the colors were reversed, and red states were democratic while blue states were republican. Partition, Palestine-style. Neither party national committee has officially accepted these color designations, though informal use by each party is becoming common. After the results were final with the Republican George W. Bush winning, journalists stuck with the color scheme, as The Atlantic's December 2001 cover story by David Brooks entitled, "One Nation, Slightly Divisible", illustrated. This is most evident in the Southern United States, where the state Democratic Party organizations tend to be more conservative than the national party, especially on social issues. More married men voted for McCain, but more single men voted for Obama. The only deviations from the preexisting red-blue paradigm were all in Obama's favor. Data is compiled from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Covid Act Now, Mayo Clinic patient data, Minnesota Department of Health, the Unacast Social Distancing Scoreboard, the United States Department of Health & Human Services, and USAFacts. [7] 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). Electoral votes invalidated. The cartographer must choose how many classes to use and how to break the data into those classes. Yellow States. … We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."[26]. We also use historical data from The COVID Tracking Project. Washington. [43], The scheme has found acceptance and implementation from the U.S. federal government as the Federal Election Commission report for the 2004 presidential election uses the red-Republican and blue-Democratic scheme for its electoral map. The states on this map voted for the same party for (at least) the four presidential elections prior to 2016. If the U.S. followed such a pattern, blue would be used for the Republicans and red for the Democrats. Inversely, in solidly red states, most voters in most urban counties voted for Democrat Barack Obama; good examples for this would be Dallas County, Texas and Fulton County, Georgia (the homes of major U.S. cities Dallas and Atlanta, respectively). Source: NYT exit polls: 24,537 surveyed[40], Source: CNN exit polls: 24,558 surveyed[41], Democratic The "Democratic blue" and "Republican red" color scheme is now part of the lexicon of American journalism. A large county or state in area may have fewer voters than a small one in area, for example. [not verified in body] Examining patterns within states reveals that the reversal of the two parties' geographic bases has happened at the state level, but it is more complicated locally, with urban-rural divides associated with many of the largest changes.[2]. For example, in the 2008 elections, most voters in large cities and some adjoining suburbs voted for Democrat Barack Obama, while most voters in most rural counties voted for Republican John McCain. However, the current U.S. scheme has become so ingrained in the American election system that foreign sources who cover U.S. elections, such as the BBC, Der Spiegel and El Mundo follow with the red-Republican, blue-Democratic scheme for U.S. Popular vote data are necessarily aggregated at several levels, such as counties and states, which are then colored to show election results. The recent (21st century) association of colors in American politics lies contrary to the long-standing conventions of political color in most other countries whereby red symbols (such as the red flag or red star) are associated with left-wing politics. Popular vote data are necessarily aggregated at several levels, such as counties and states, which are then colored to show election results. Purple states are also often referred to as "battleground" states. Electoral law in Maine and Nebraska makes it possible for those states to split their electoral votes: winner-take-all both by congressional district and statewide. Population of the 24 fully R-controlled states: 134,035,267. All states contain both liberal and conservative voters (i.e., they are "purple") and only appear blue or red on the electoral map because of the winner-take-all system used by most states in the Electoral College. Note that election maps of all kinds are subject to errors of interpretation. Democrats will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 15 states. There are currently 31,849,950 cases confirmed in the US. In fact, many of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states which voted for Bush are relatively sparsely populated (Nebraska, for instance, has a population similar to the island of Manhattan). Conservative regions like the Deep South, Midwest, Southwest, and mountainous northwest tend to take more in federal dollars than they pay into the federal government through taxes. (lighter shading indicates win ≤5%), Winner did not receive a majority of the popular vote In light of the general absence of overwhelming victories, this technique results in mostly shades. The elections in Arkansas as well as West Virginia in 2004 were won by Republican President George W. Bush, but Democrats at the time held all four U.S. Senate seats and majorities of elected executive officeholders in those states, including the governorship of the latter. 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 2000 presidential election. Similarly, Tennessee went to Bush in both 2000 and 2004, but going into 2004, its governor was a Democrat and both chambers of the state legislature were controlled by Democrats as well. Since the 1984 election, CBS has used the opposite scheme: blue for Democrats, red for Republicans. [39] In 2008, 48 percent of U.S. voters lived in such counties, which increased further to 50 percent in 2012 and to 61 percent in 2016.[37][38]. While the blue states represented a comparatively small geographic area, they contained large populations, which ended up making President Bush's national level of support slimmer than the red–blue map would seem to indicate. 14.49. Engage students in current election 3. On March 14, 2014, the California Republican Party officially rejected red and adopted blue as its color. On election night that year, there was no coordinated effort to code Democratic states blue and Republican states red; the association gradually emerged. [1] Since then, the use of the term has been expanded to differentiate between states being perceived as liberal and those perceived as conservative. In 1980, when John 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. Maps of this type are called choropleth maps, which have several well-known problems that can result in interpretation bias. Connecticut. Michigan. In 2008, Obama carried Iowa and New Hampshire by more than nine percentage points, and New Mexico by double digits. View the data via a heat map (immediately below), curve charts, a table of state-by-state trends over four weeks, or a map of total cases and deaths. Robert Vanderbei at Princeton University made the first Purple America map after the 2000 presidential election. Each tend to bring out some patterns while obscuring others. "Amerika wählt – Spiegel Online – Nachrichten", "The Urban Archipelago: It's the Cities, Stupid", Choosing colors based on incumbent vs. challenger victory from November, 2004, The Honky Tonk Gap: Country Music, Red State Identity, and the Election of 2004, "Re-imagining the Red States: New Directions for Southern Studies. As the 2016 election cycle approached, the electoral map had become pretty predictable. ", "Ideas & Trends; One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State", "Those Special Election Bells, Whistles and, Yes, Some Numbers, Too", "A Divided Government Remains, and With It the Prospect of Further Combat", "Learn the signs of your political colors", "Ideas & Trends; One State, Two State, Red State, Blue StateΨ Page 2 – New York Times", "Rules and Principles of Scientific Data Visualization", "Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention", "Maps and cartograms of the 2004 U.S. presidential election results", "We Are All Purple: The Destructive Lie of Red States and Blue States", "Cartographic variations on the presidential election 2000 theme", "For a Conservative, Life Is Sweet in Sugar Land, Tex", "Electorally competitive counties have grown scarcer in recent decades", "The Divide Between Red and Blue America Grew Even Deeper in 2016". Of this type are called by the associated Press 2017, a total of states! 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