All voters are equal, but some voters are more equal than others. And the most equal of all live in the Equality State.
Wyoming has fewer than 435,000 eligible voters but gets two senators—the same as California, which has over 67 times as many eligible voters.
Republicans’ advantage in low-population states is part of what makes the Senate a deeply anti-democratic institution. In fact, two blue states, California and New York, together contain more people than 19 red states combined, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
That gives Republicans 38 senators—over a third of the chamber—pretty much guaranteed. New York and California give Democrats a total of four.
That means a minority of the population—one that is whiter and more conservative than the country at large—gets to decide what passes Congress, even when more progressive legislation is supported by most of the country. Heck, Republicans regularly win control of the Senate even when they win fewer overall votes in Senate races.
For example, Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso may have won reelection this year by a whopping 51 percentage points, but that figures out to less than 135,000 votes. Compare that to California, where Democrat Adam Schiff won by a relatively narrow 18 points—or, in other words, more than 2.7 million votes.
But there is a simple, if difficult, way to fix minority rule in the Senate: Make new states.
The last time the U.S. grew the union was in 1959, with Alaska and Hawaii joining in quick succession. In a flip of modern times, Alaska was seen as leaning Democratic and Hawaii Republican, and the dual admission was sold as a way to keep political balance in Washington.
While such bipartisanship is unfathomable today, the moral case for admitting Washington, D.C., as a state is obvious: Its residents are American citizens who pay taxes, and as that famous American Revolution slogan goes, there should be no taxation without representation.
And the moral case for admitting the territories isn’t much different. The people of Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are American citizens who also frequently pay federal taxes. (The one exception is perhaps American Samoa, whose residents are U.S. nationals, though they can apply for citizenship.)
Statehood would grant the territories more funding in Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants, and food assistance, according to a 2014 report about Puerto Rico statehood by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. In turn, these new states would also contribute more in tax revenue to the broader U.S.
There are six clear candidates for statehood—plus a seventh lurking on the West Coast.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico has a population of over 3.2 million, higher than 19 states—and five and a half times the size of Wyoming (584,000 people). If admitted, it would likely have four House members and the standard two senators.
Over 56% of Puerto Rico voted for statehood in November’s nonbinding referendum. That makes for the fourth consecutive referendum where Puerto Ricans have opted for statehood. But these mean nothing unless Congress acts.
In general, to admit a state, the territory must present itself to Congress by “drafting a state constitution, electing state officers, organizing a state-like territorial government, and sending an elected ‘congressional’ delegation to Washington to lobby for statehood,” according to the Congressional Research Service. Congress then must pass legislation admitting the territory, and the president needs to sign it. (This is known as the “Tennessee Plan” for statehood.)
People gather in front of the Puerto Rico’s Capitol on April 30, 2015, in San Juan.
Puerto Rico already meets a lot of those requirements. And in the 117th Congress, 62 Democratic House members and 19 Republicans co-sponsored legislation to make it a state. In 2022, the House went so far as to pass an “enabling act” that would have pushed things further—only for that act to die in the Senate, which, despite being under Democratic control, never scheduled a vote on it.
It’s hard to know how Puerto Rico would align politically if admitted as a state. This year, Democrat Kamala Harris trounced Donald Trump—73% to 27%—in its presidential straw poll, which for the first time appeared on the same ballot as local elections. If that result became consistent, Puerto Rico would be the most favorable state for Democratic presidential candidates, period. (The current No. 1 is Vermont, where Harris won 64%.)
But things aren’t so simple. For example, Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro R. Pierluisi is affiliated with the Democratic Party, but this past January, he lost in a primary to Jenniffer González-Colón, who is affiliated with the Republican Party. Again, they’re both members of the local New Progressive Party.
The reason for this? Much of the territory’s political divisions hinge on support for or opposition to statehood, independence, or the status quo. The New Progressive Party advocates statehood, and its members generally split their affiliation between the Democratic and Republican parties. The other major party in Puerto Rico—the Popular Democratic Party—favors a version of the status quo and is more aligned with Democrats than Republicans.
In other words, the state of Puerto Rico would probably be sending more Democrats than Republicans to Washington—but emphasis on probably.
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Washington, D.C.
However much partisan ambiguity you find in Puerto Rico, you get the opposite in Washington, D.C. The district holds three electoral votes and has never given them to a Republican presidential candidate. And it’s not close: Harris won it with over 90% of the vote.
So it’s no surprise that virtually every House Democrat sponsored and voted for statehood legislation when it was introduced in 2021 by Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s nonvoting member of the House.
Outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia
However, not a single House Republican backed it. And while it still passed the House that year—Democrats controlled the chamber—it was killed in the Senate by one man: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who was at the time a Democrat.
And yet, even if a Democratic Congress passes this legislation in the future, there’s no guarantee the Supreme Court would let it live. The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution had to be ratified to allow D.C. residents to vote in presidential elections. And there are many who believe conferring statehood on the district would require another amendment since the Constitution requires a district to house the U.S. Capitol, White House, and other federal grounds. However, pro-statehood advocates propose carving out said grounds as a way to circumvent this.
Crazy thing is, a constitutional amendment was almost adopted in 1979. The D.C. Voting Rights Amendment, which would have given the district full House and Senate representation, passed Congress and was sent to the states to ratify, but it came up 22 states short of the required 38.
Nevertheless, the District of Columbia doesn’t get a say in Congress, despite having as many people as 1.2 Wyomings.
Other territories
And this is where things get even harder, politically speaking. America’s four other territories—American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—all have very, very small populations. How small? The combined population of all four (338,000) is little more than half that of Wyoming, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Another hurdle? Some of these territories don’t have a clear political benefit to either party. Harris narrowly won Guam’s presidential straw poll, and while Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama won by larger margins, the territory twice backed Republican George W. Bush.
And when you look at the partisan affiliations of these territories’ major lawmakers, things aren’t much clearer. The Virgin Islands is reliably Democratic, but they have fewer people (87,000) than many small cities in the U.S.
In the worst case for Democrats, they’d likely end up netting just four senators across all five territories (including Puerto Rico) and the District of Columbia. Adding the senators to the incoming Congress would look something like: Republicans 57, Democrats 55. In other words, not enough to overcome Republicans’ current majority. (But other states could close that gap too.)
Worst of all, these four territories have no active statehood movements, unlike D.C. and Puerto Rico. However, that hasn’t stopped at least one sitting Democratic senator, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, from publicly endorsing a wide expansion of statehood.
One of our highest medium term priorities must be to enfranchise – to empower, Americans in Puerto Rico, DC, Guam, American Samoa with full representation in Congress and to allow formerly incarcerated individuals to vote.— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) October 6, 2018
This leads us to our last option …
The Golden States
Virginia is known as the “Mother of States” since eight other states were carved out of land it once claimed. West Virginia, the most recent of its offspring, in 1863, has less than 1.8 million residents. California has 22 times as many.
In many ways, it makes little sense to have a state the size of California. It has the fifth-largest GDP in the world (yes, world) and the largest GDP per capita, bar none. And while its size can be wielded for progressive gain—for example, when California changes its emissions standards, the whole country changes its emissions standards—its law is nevertheless superseded by the federal government. California is an “ironclad” haven for abortion—until Donald Trump bans it federally.
The most recent ballot initiative to break up California hit in 2018, spearheaded by venture capitalist and both-sides dipshit Tim Draper, but the state Supreme Court killed it. That plan, called “Cal 3,” would have cracked the state into thirds, giving each derivative state an uninspired name: California, Northern California, and Southern California.
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All three hypothetical states would have gone for Harris in 2024, two by huge margins (roughly 30 points) and one much more narrowly (2.4 points). However, given Harris’ weak performance overall, that swing-ish state gets over 5 points bluer when we factor in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. In other words, it’d be about as safe as New Mexico for Democrats or Ohio for Republicans.
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That may not be a risk many are willing to take, though, since it gives Republicans a shot—if a difficult one—at nabbing some of California’s electoral votes. However, “Cal 3” is just one far-from-ideal plan. And it isn’t hard to draw a map that breaks California up into three or more safely Democratic states.
Of course, such a move would entail many, many other issues to sort out. First off, California’s legislature would have to vote to break up the state—i.e., state lawmakers would have to choose to give up power. And the new states would need to establish new capitals, work out water rights, how to handle their prisons … the list goes on.
All this complexity is why the past 220 attempts to break up the Golden State have failed.
But Democrats are left with few good options—and their future in the Senate appears to be growing dimmer by the year.
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