Why and when did the Democratic states change from red to blue?

Why and when did the Democratic states change from red to blue?

That's a good question. It seems to be pretty recent, here is a good article about it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17079-2004Nov1.html

Actually a friend of mine who doesn't follow the news regularly was sure that Red was democrats and Blue Republicans because he saw one Poll map where this was the case... Indeed I checked and I don't remember where but at least one American news organization was using Red for democrats at some point during the 2004 campaign.

The southern U.S. used to be a democratic stronghold beginning at the end of the civil war. The south blamed Lincoln and the Republicans for the war. In the 1950's the democratic party began to support the civil rights movement and in the mid 1960's democratic voters switched to the Republicans and have remained there most of the time until today.

Well I can not understand united we stand because it is surely not the case as many are seeing it.