The Divisive Symbolism of ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ States

As voting results arrived from important contested state elections Tuesday night, the media duly dropped them into red and blue graphic buckets.

Since the dawn of the color TV age, that’s how the media has been portraying voting preferences.

Why Red and Blue Labels Hurt Democracy

It may seem nit-picky, but with the exception of depicting votes in the electoral college, dividing results by arbitrary made-for-TV lines of red and blue contributes to the fiction of national division and disunity.

In 2024, Pennsylvania gave 50.4% of its vote to Donald Trump. So it’s a red state. Right? Then how do we account for the 3.4 million Pennsylvania voters who chose Kamala Harris? Are they chopped liver? And what about the 56.9% of Pennsylvanians who elected Josh Shapiro governor in 2022? Tuesday, three liberal Pennsylvania supreme court justices won reelection by near 2-1 margins. This, despite a huge money blitz by Republicans trying to defeat them. So is Pennsylvania red or blue?

Donald Trump, our divider-in-chief, certainly sees the nation through that red and blue lens.

In October he put a hold on $11 billion worth of vital water-related projects in a dozen “blue” states. Then he withdrew $2 billion in federal funds Congress had approved for expanding Chicago’s elevated rail system. A few days later he “terminated” a $16 billion commitment for a rail tunnel under the Hudson River linking New York and New Jersey.

Take that, blue states. Your punishment for not voting for Trump.

It likely never occurred to him that with the Hudson tunnel cut he is punishing 5,547,114 New York and New Jersey voters who cast ballots for him in 2004.

Misleading Math Behind “Blue” Taxpayer States

In fact, nationwide 26,882,402 voters, 34% of his total vote, came from Trump voters in “blue” states. Looked at from the other side of the ballot, 33,214,343 Harris supporters cast ballots in states Trump won. So in favoring “red” states he’s helping a whole lot of voters who don’t support him.

Drawing hard color-coded lines on our election maps does little to inform us about the true character of American voters, but rather embeds artificial boundaries that add to the narrative of division among us. Symbols matter.

If there is an overriding message in Tuesday night’s results, it’s the fallacy of thinking of American voters sorting themselves into rigid political camps. Many Biden voters switched to Trump in 2024. Many more essentially voted against Trump in 2025. The extent of the anti-Trump vote was astonishing, well beyond every pre-election forecast.

The New Jersey governor’s race was presumed to be a potential GOP win. The Democrat won by 13 points. In Virginia, Democrats hoped to keep their one seat majority in the state House. They did that, plus flipped 13 Republican seats. Democrats won state legislative seats in South Carolina and Mississippi that few expected them to win. In Republican-leaning Erie, Pennsylvania, a Democrat was elected county executive by a 24 point margin.

Off year elections seldom draw large numbers of voters to the polls. New York City’s turnout was the largest in nearly 60 years.

November 5 was not the rigid us-against-them red vs blue color coded election most pundits expected. But it was totally consistent with an America that’s been voting freely and not at all in lockstep to choose its leaders for 250 years.

The results also are a warning flare to Trump and others who might try to corrupt the 2026 elections to retain power. Americans won’t readily submit to the loss of that right to choose. There’s a more powerful symbol at work here than TV red and blue. It’s red white and blue. And it will be hanging over every polling place.

Here’s this week’s STEM Winder: A weekly look into the future.

Comments? Criticism? Contact Joe Rothstein at jrothstein@rothstein.net

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