Political colors blur our view of the United States

Red, blue, and… yellow?

Some history first. Back in 1976, the tv network NBC decided to create a large electoral college map with red and blue lights for election night coverage. Since the parties did not have official colors, they were assigned arbitrarily by the networks. On NBC, the Democrats were red and the Republicans blue. On CBS, the opposite was true. On ABC, Democrats were blue and Republicans were yellow (!). For decades, there was no standardization.

The 2000 race between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush changed the situation. With small margins, re-counts, and court challenges in Florida, the electoral college maps remained on television screens and front pages for weeks rather than only election night. That year, Republicans were red while Democrats were blue. Soon, political pundits started referring to Red States and Blue States in columns and commentary.

In the summer of 2004, a largely unknown state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama became a political star with one speech at the Democratic National Convention. Obama told an electrified audience to reject how “the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats.” In 2004, the Red States and Blue States framework was new, today it is everywhere.

When the explanation distorts

Nowadays, the framework has come to dominate our understanding of the United States beyond election nights and, indeed, beyond politics. We are told that California is a blue state, not that a majority of Californians tend to vote for Democrats. We are told that states ban abortion because they are red states, not because elected politicians or judges favor such legislation.

This can be a useful shorthand since there are meaningful differences between legislation and rights in states controlled by conservatives and states ruled by liberals. But it seems the shorthand actually does more to distort our view of the United States than it does to explain.

Everything it touches turns into politics

First, it politicizes. When we think of the United States as consisting of Red and Blue, we highlight political results as the most important characteristic of a state. Yet it is worth remembering that most Americans do not follow politics and a large number do not vote.

In New York, for example, some four and a half million people voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, while over five million eligible voters never cast a ballot. You read that right: a larger number of people did not vote for either candidate than the number who voted for the winner. Nor is New York in any way unique in this regard. So, if we use the framework of Red States and Blue States we foreground election results in a way that slants rather than clarifies.

Seeing red, seeing blue

Second, it divides. This is not just an academic conversation, it has real-life implications. Research indicates that the traditional red-and-blue electoral college maps that we see on our screens drive polarization.

Let’s remember that most states are actually some shade of purple. In over two-thirds of all states, the winning candidate in the 2024 election received under 60% of the vote. For example, in Oregon, a traditional liberal state, Trump received some 41% of the votes and the reverse was true for Harris in conservative Kansas.

Purple would best capture the rather even results. When people see the red-and-blue maps, however, they tend to focus on division and overestimate the difference between themselves and the voters in another state and another party. In other words, the Red States and Blue States framework erases common ground and drives division.

Going beyond division

The United States is not only politics. And politics is not only elections and division. It is a participatory process to resolve differences. And if the dominant frameworks of understanding the United States today foregrounds and even drives political identity and division, it is time to find new perspectives.

Oscar Winberg
The writer is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies and the John Morton Center for North American Studies at the University of Turku.

The article is published as part of the Aurora online magazine of the University of Turku.