The association between the Republican Party and the color red is a 21st-century phenomenon. Since the invention of color television in the second half of the 20th century, television networks at times used random colors to designate the parties. (In fact, in 1976 NBC News used blue for the Republican Party and red for the Democratic Party.) For the election of 2000, three major broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—adopted a uniform color palette: red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. The idea was that uniformity would limit viewers’ confusion if they were changing channels. Anything that could limit confusion during the 2000 election proved to be helpful, as it took some five weeks and a Supreme Court ruling for the state of Florida to turn red, giving the presidency to George W. Bush over Al Gore. After 2000 the use of red to designate Republicans and blue for Democrats became ingrained in the national political culture, giving rise to a third color, purple, to designate states that could swing from Republican to Democratic control and vice versa.
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