Why are the colors reversed?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Normally the networks color states blue for Democrat and red for Republican, but not here.  Why isn't it the same here?

[Enduro]

Yes.

[RaphaelDLG]

I'm going to make an educated guess and say that

1) Atlas colors are based on traditional european color associations, where red = labour/leftist/socialist/communist/worker parties and blue = conservative/christian democrat parties (yellow is typically liberal/centrist/libertarian third parties)

2) Atlas colors were picked in the nineties, before "Red States" and "Blue States" became a cultural phenomenon circa 2000 due to Tim Russert and his ilk.  A better question is why TV people went with the flipped color scheme, because it doesn't make any sense.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

oh ok thanks for answering my question, new here sorry xDD

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Don't you f**king dare.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

oh ok thanks for answering my question, new here sorry xDD

no problem welcome plz like my libertarians 4 bolton fb page

[Grumpier Than Thou]

le dank meem

[angus]

The colors are not "reversed."  We get this question far too many times, especially given that Dave Leip explains it in a bolded and colored link on the first page of this website:  Click on HOME above and scroll down to just above "Welcome!"

Anyway it's basically the #2 reason Raphael listed above, but it's still a strange question.  Dave could pick any colors he wanted to, and there's no good reason to question him about it, unless you're also going to question the Fox News Channel, CNN, the Washington Post, NYTimes, TIME, etc., about their choices in color-coding, which are rather odd, if you ask me.  Dave has chosen a reasonable color scheme, and in fact for anyone over 40 would be the one we all remember from the news broadcasts of our youth.  Moreover, Dave's choice is logical when you think about the general American associations with the colors Blue and Red.  (Admittedly this year everything was topsy-turvy in the Presidential election, with a protectionist Republican and a Bush-Doctrinaire Democrat.  Maybe the Fox/CNN/NYT color-coding is starting to make more sense after all.)

[Mr. Morden]

All my election maps use infrared and ultraviolet.

[Sopranos Republican]

because the democrats are communists and the republicans are center-left liberals, if only you had listened to me and voted castle/bradley the only ticket for real americans