Click here for more results from the 2024 Presidential General Election California has been a blue state since the U.S. began labeling states red or blue back in 2000 (more on that later). With 54 electoral votes, California is one of the country's most influential blue states, but when was the last time the state didn't vote Democratic during the presidential election? To find the answer, you'd have to go back a few decades to the 1988 presidential election, when California put its electoral college votes behind George H. W. Bush. This selection wasn't an anomaly for the state of California, however. During the 20th century, California voted red in 15 of the 25 presidential elections. But overall, since California voted for Bush, the state has voted for the Democratic candidate for the last eight straight elections. On a local level, California has been pretty back and forth in terms of voting red or blue. Between 1983 and 2011, a Republican held the position of Governor of California aside from Gray Davis (D), who was elected in 1999 and was governor until 2003 when he lost to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who held the position until 2011. However, after Schwarzenegger, a Democrat has always been the Governor of California with Jerry Brown (D) and Gavin Newsom (D). Origins of red states and blue states While it seems like a name that has been around forever, the terms red and blue states have actually not been around for as long as you may think. To find the origins of these names, you'd have to go back to the year 1976, according to NPR. During the election that year, NBC, the first all-color network, unveiled an illuminated colored map. If a state voted for Gerald Ford (R), the state would turn the color blue and if they voted for Jimmy Carter (D) it would turn red – the opposite colors of what the parties are associated with today. The original choice of blue for Republicans was due to blue being the color of the Union during the Civil War. As more networks began switching to color, they too began using colored maps for the election, but they did not agree on what color each party should be. This caused viewers who would switch channels plenty of confusion as what was blue for Republicans on NBC was red on a different network. This confusion continued until 2000 when people began casually referring to states that voted for George W. Bush (R) as red states and states that voted for Al Gore (D) as blue states. The terms then became commonplace in the political world, pop culture, and throughout the country, with everyone agreeing that Democrats were blue and Republicans were red.