Republican 'Red' States Outnumber Democrat 'Blue' for First Time in US

The political line up of US states has shifted to the right, with so-called "red" or conservative states outnumbering "blue" or more liberal states for the first time, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Red states tend to vote Republican while their blue counterparts lean Democrat.

"This is the first time in Gallup's eight years of tracking partisanship by state that there have been more Republican than Democratic states. It also marks a dramatic shift from 2008, when Democratic strength nationally was its greatest in recent decades," Gallup said in a press release explaining the poll results.

The poll revealed that 20 US states are red versus 14 that are blue and another 16 are considered contested.

Gallup asks Americans each day as part of its daily tracking survey whether they identify politically as a Democrat, a Republican or an independent. Independents are then probed as to whether they lean toward the Democratic or Republican Party, according to the release.

Combining the percentage of party identifiers and leaners gives a sense of the relative strength of each party in a given state in the United States. Gallup’s red-vs-blue estimate is based on daily interviews throughout 2015 of at least 488 voters in every state.