Since the year 2000, the political landscape in the United States has been distinctly divided into red representing the Republican Party and blue for the Democratic Party. According to KTLA 5 News in Los Angeles, California has consistently been identified as a blue state since this color-coding began. The state holds 54 electoral votes, making it one of the most influential blue states in the nation. But when was the last time California voted for a Republican candidate in a presidential election? That would take us back to 1988 when the state’s electoral votes went to Republican George H. W. Bush.
Interestingly, such a trend is not uncommon. Throughout the 20th century, California voted for Republican candidates in 15 out of 25 presidential elections. Since Bush’s presidency, however, the state has sided with Democratic candidates in the last eight presidential elections.
When it comes to gubernatorial races, California shows a more fluctuating pattern. From 1983 to 2011, the state’s governor was Democratic Gray Davis, who was elected in 1999. However, he was recalled in 2003, and Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger took over as governor until 2011. Since then, the governorship has been held by Democrats Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom.
While the terms “red state” and “blue state” seem like they have been around forever, the history behind them is not as long as one might think. According to National Public Radio (NPR), these labels trace back to the 1976 presidential election. That year, NBC was the first television network to display a color map, designating states that supported Republican candidate Gerald Ford in blue and those that supported Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter in red, which is the opposite of the modern convention. The choice of blue for the Republican Party at that time stemmed from its association with the Union during the Civil War.
As more networks transitioned to color broadcasting, they also utilized colored maps to present election results. However, there was no consensus on which party was represented by which color, leading to viewer confusion—NBC used blue for the Republicans, while other networks may have used red.
This confusing scenario persisted until the 2000 election when people began informally labeling states that voted for Republican George W. Bush as red states and those that supported Democratic Al Gore as blue states. These terms have since become entrenched in political discourse and popular culture, so much so that today, blue represents the Democratic Party and red symbolizes the Republican Party.
