>>>It can be overstated, of course, and I'm sorry if I did. No state out of the 50 is 100% to 0% for either party, or even close. Still, there are pronounced tendencies. In Presidential elections NC can comfortably be counted in the Republican column and IL in the Democratic column. The candidates barely visit either state, although they are among the dozen or so most populous. So red state and blue state labels do have a basis in fact IMO.
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>>I also don't think that the percentages mean much in the red vs blue state counting. It's more like "state XX consistently votes for...", regardless of the vote being 51:49 or 89:11. In the electoral system where the winner takes the whole state (as in presidential elections), that's the only thing that matters.
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>Please don't get me going on the Electoral College system. It's a stupid anachronism. Unfortunately I have little hope we can get rid of it because the Constitutional amendment deck is even more skewed in favor of small states than the Electoral College.
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>I'll shut up and save my energy for battles that can be won.

Actually, I have seen some guys come with a completely legal way to keep electoral college and have the right results at the same time: the college members are to vote as instructed by their states. The states can tell them to split their votes proportionally. They are within their rights to even pass a law to that effect, as a permanent instruction.