Our purple nation

When people in the media refer to "purple states"—those where the populace falls between being mostly a (conservative) "red" state or mostly a (liberal) "blue" state, that clearly is thinking in terms of dyes, where red and blue make purple.

However, on the spectrum of light waves, obviously purple (violet) is nearer to blue than to red, and is not between those two colors.

Politicos prefer textile analogies over science.