Fun fact: in 1980 most news stations used blue for Reagan and red for Carter, although some reversed that. Prior to 2000 red and blue would be used for the parties basically at random, although frequently alternated to avoid consistently assigning red to any specific party (because of the implications of a party being associated with "red" during the Cold War). It only became entrenched like it is because a clip of a news caster talking about "red states" (in reference to states on a map that were literally colored red because they'd arbitrarily rotated to Bush=red and Gore=blue that time around) went viral and so standardized the discourse around "red states" and "blue states," which is the dumbest possible reason so of course it's what happened.
Yes. I knew offhand that the colors used for parties were basically random, although I'd also heard an apparently false claim that there was a bias towards using one color for incumbent parties and another for challengers. I did, however, look it up to see what colors were used for Reagan. Apparently NBC was consistent in using blue for Republicans and red for Democrats, intentionally adopting the UK's convention of blue Tories and red Labour, but there was no clear standard for anyone else until the 2000 election, when it stuck because of how long the process was dragged out on account of electoral rigging and the judicial coup.
I suppose the bit about the influence of a particular news commentary clip may not be 100% correct, but that was a part of the broader discourse that cemented the color associations in the public conscience.
Fun fact: in 1980 most news stations used blue for Reagan and red for Carter, although some reversed that. Prior to 2000 red and blue would be used for the parties basically at random, although frequently alternated to avoid consistently assigning red to any specific party (because of the implications of a party being associated with "red" during the Cold War). It only became entrenched like it is because a clip of a news caster talking about "red states" (in reference to states on a map that were literally colored red because they'd arbitrarily rotated to Bush=red and Gore=blue that time around) went viral and so standardized the discourse around "red states" and "blue states," which is the dumbest possible reason so of course it's what happened.
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Yes. I knew offhand that the colors used for parties were basically random, although I'd also heard an apparently false claim that there was a bias towards using one color for incumbent parties and another for challengers. I did, however, look it up to see what colors were used for Reagan. Apparently NBC was consistent in using blue for Republicans and red for Democrats, intentionally adopting the UK's convention of blue Tories and red Labour, but there was no clear standard for anyone else until the 2000 election, when it stuck because of how long the process was dragged out on account of electoral rigging and the judicial coup.
I suppose the bit about the influence of a particular news commentary clip may not be 100% correct, but that was a part of the broader discourse that cemented the color associations in the public conscience.