Fun Fact: Washington, D.C. isn’t a state! While residents of the District of Columbia pay the highest taxes per capita of anywhere in the country, and most D.C. residents want statehood, they don’t have full representation in our government. Motions to give D.C. statehood and full representation in Congress have been stirring for a long time—with enormous effort from Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the only non-voting member of Congress—but haven’t picked up a lot of support from the rest of the nation. And as a new poll from Gallup shows, that, unfortunately, hasn’t changed.
Before we dig into the polling, let’s get some context about why this data matters right now. This year has the potential to be huge for D.C. statehood. H.R.51 has a scheduled hearing in the lower chamber for the first time since the early ‘90s. The bill also has more co-sponsors and sponsors in the House of Representatives than ever before, coming in at an impressive 216. To put this into perspective, sometimes bills have just a handful of sponsors at this stage.
This is great! But D.C. achieving statehood is far from a sure thing. And while D.C. residents are eager to have our full rights and representation, many in the rest of the country are against it. To gather these findings, Gallup conducted telephone interviews with 1,108 adults from June 19 to June 30, 2019. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4% and respondents were included from all 50 states.
As reported by Gallup, a shocking 64% of Americans don’t think D.C. should be a state. Mind you, they aren’t just undecided (8% report having no opinion) but actively against it. And 29% of Americans support it. Women and nonwhite voters were slightly more likely to support statehood.
Breaking this down by region is intriguing. In the east coast, 38% of residents support statehood. Both Democrats and Republicans on the east coast are more likely to support statehood than Democrats or Republicans in other regions. Outside of the east coast, support rings it at only 28%.
Why? Probably because people who live (relatively) closer to D.C. are more familiar with the whole concept of statehood. For example, even if you’re just visiting the capital, you’re likely to notice the “Taxation Without Representation” license plates, stickers, and flyers around the city, or to have been canvassed by grassroots movements like DC Vote. It’s also possible that living on the east coast exposes people to the reality that D.C. isn’t just a transient space where politicians live for part of the year—people actually do live, work, and raise families in D.C.
Race is an important part of the dialogue, too; while gentrification is hitting D.C. incredibly hard, minority populations (especially black Americans, though it’s shifted over the years) have made up the majority of residents at various points. Don’t discount a lack of statehood as anything other than what it is—chronic disenfranchisement.
About 50% of liberals who participated in the poll support D.C. statehood, while 49% of Democrats do. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 14% of conservatives and 15% of Republicans support statehood, which is basically what the party line is for the GOP. Why are Republicans so against it? Some will cite the founding fathers, but it’s probably because D.C. statehood would almost certainly give Democrats more votes. Former governor of Ohio John Kasich has said he’s opposed to it for that very reason, in fact.
Earlier this summer, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell literally said, “none of that stuff is going anywhere,” in reference to D.C. [and Puerto Rico] statehood, and compared it to “full-bore socialism.” Yikes.
Democrats on the Oversight and Reform Committee are holding a hearing on the statehood measure; it was originally scheduled for July 24, but is being delayed (likely until September, as reported by DCist) because of Robert Mueller’s expected testimony.
Interesting note: Every Democrat running for the nomination has said they support granting D.C. statehood. What do you think about D.C. statehood?