Party colors took time to settle, with suffrage-era yellow later giving way to today’s red-and-blue maps

Republicans are widely associated with red and Democrats with blue, and election night results are now shown through that color-coded lens. But the link between party identity and those specific colors is a relatively recent visual convention, according to historical accounts that trace how U.S. campaigns and media presentation evolved over decades and even centuries.

One early example involves the suffrage movement. In 1867, organizers Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton adopted yellow tied to the sunflower, Kansas’s state flower, during a campaign for women’s voting rights in the state, a step that linked a prominent political cause to a recognizable color. As the movement developed further, later suffragist symbolism incorporated additional colors, including white and purple, described in one account as elements of a broader “political uniform” for the cause.

By the time major-party campaigns were taking shape in the 19th century, color itself was not consistently used as a party marker. Instead, one historical description says animals and other symbols distinguished Democrats and Republicans, and both parties frequently drew on the national palette of red, white, and blue without giving it the specific ideological association that modern viewers often assume.

Even in the 20th century, media choices helped determine how colors looked to voters. One account notes that television used the bulbs on early on-air election maps in a way that later became familiar: a description tied to the 1976 election says NBC’s first on-air election map used red and blue to designate states won by Jimmy Carter and other candidates, helping set the stage for later nationwide recognition of the colors.

The convention continued to solidify through later electoral cycles and mainstream coverage. A historical magazine account points to the 2000 presidential election as a moment that helped cement the red-and-blue structure in the way many Americans now visualize partisan geography. In the meantime, other media and institutional contexts also reflected different color practices, such as party conventions where blue and red themes can dominate for Democrats and Republicans, respectively, depending on the venue and branding decisions.

Accounts of the historical shift also emphasize that the “red versus blue” framing is not a direct measure of voters’ specific beliefs. Describing modern politics as “color-coded,” one narrative argues that the association can obscure the range of policy views within either party, because the two-party system is often presented through stark color choices that do not capture differences on the economy, immigration, foreign policy, or other issues.