How red went from the color of revolution to the color of Republicans in US politics

For decades, TV networks arbitrarily assigned red and blue to presidential candidates each election with no fixed convention; NBC colored Gerald Ford's states blue in 1976, and even the Washington Post still had Democrats as red and Republicans as blue heading into 2000. That year, networks happened to converge on red for Bush and blue for Gore, and NBC's Tim Russert is often credited with popularizing 'red states' during the campaign.

Florida's five-week recount kept the same map on every channel night after night until Bush was certified the winner by 537 votes, cementing red-Republican and blue-Democrat as fixed shorthand that spread quickly into talk of 'two Americas.' A political scientist notes the standard winner-take-all map flattens real differences, coloring a state won by 2 points the same solid shade as one won by 30.

An alternative 'Purple America' map, built by Princeton's Robert Vanderbei after the 2000 election and shaded by vote margin, got some attention including a Newsweek website mention but never displaced the binary map on network graphics or in candidates' own rhetoric.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.