It’s always been weird to me, red is left and blue is right, it’s like this in all countries, why not in the US too? (I’m serious, can somebody please explain to me why the US has different colour for political side alignment that the rest of the world)
This original color scheme was based on Great Britain’s political system, which used red to denote the more liberal party.
The Liberal party used yellow, and it’s politics lived up to it’s name. Red was always the color used by Labour, that used to be left wing, not liberal.
(But yes, I know, they’re just politically illiterate and use “liberal” when they mean left)
Television channels just used whatever random colors up until the 2000 election, which was close and contested all the way through so they kept having coverage of it. Then they started copying each other’s maps until it started settling into consistent colors. Near the end of that election people started saying “red states” and “blue states,” at which point it was a lock.
