No Party Color Standardization in the US

[Steve Brinson]

On this board, I've seen red Democrats and blue Democrats, silver Democrats and orange Democrats, beige Democrats and indigo Democrats. (I made that last one, though, so perhaps it shouldn't count.)
It seems trivial to have some different combination of color become the standard. But would it be possible to have no color standardisation whatsoever?To have, say, CNN showing brown Republicans and pink Democrats, NBC showing gold Republicans and green Democrats, and FOX showing red Democrats and blue Republicans? If so, what would have to happen and when?

 

[Thande]

I may have the exact details wrong, but I understand that from the 90s onwards, the US networks agreed to all use a consistent colour scheme of red and blue, but to rotate which colour was for which party with each presidential election. The idea being that blue is often taken to mean good guys and red bad guys so this way it would be fairer. However, when the 2000 election happened, everyone was so used to staring at election maps for weeks and months on end because of the disputed Florida result that people got used to red Republicans and blue Democrats, and so that became the standard. If the 2000 election was a decisive result then colour standardisation might be delayed, although things like Wikipedia might still lead to it eventually being adopted regardless.

The US Election Atlas site uses red Democrats and blue Republicans I believe because it was first set up for the 1996 presidential election. This colour scheme does appear to have been the more common choice in the past, as seen for instance in this nineteenth century statistical atlas: 1880 presidential election map

 

[Indicus]

This colour scheme does appear to have been the more common choice in the past, as seen for instance in this nineteenth century statistical atlas: 1880 presidential election map

That's certainly strange, what with the Democrats being right-wing and the Republicans being left-wing back then.

 

[OwenM]

That's certainly strange, what with the Democrats being right-wing and the Republicans being left-wing back then.

I have a feeling Catholicism was involved in some way.

 

[overoceans]

I have a feeling Catholicism was involved in some way.

You mean like Rome, the Scarlet Woman of Revelation, etc?

Red was also the colour of Canadian Liberals and their forebears, going all the way back to at least the mid-19th Century. In those days, liberals and Liberals were generally anti-clerical(in a Jeffersonian rather than Jacobin sense), but also pretty pro-capitalist, even moreso than the Tories.

 

[Thande]

You mean like Rome, the Scarlet Woman of Revelation, etc?

Red was also the colour of Canadian Liberals and their forebears, going all the way back to at least the mid-19th Century. In those days, liberals and Liberals were generally anti-clerical(in a Jeffersonian rather than Jacobin sense), but also pretty pro-capitalist, even moreso than the Tories.

Red was also used for Liberals on some British election maps in the 19th century, and apparently quite consistently so, given I've seen some with captions referring to 'the red of Liberalism'.

 

[Sabot Cat]

I think some of the reasoning too was that Republicans often take most of the states on the map, or at least large clusters of them, and a sea of red looks better (especially on TV) than a sea of blue.