logo

Has Democratic Party support solidified for making DC the 51st state?

Wednesday, July 8, 2020
By Christopher Hutton
YES

A June 26 vote in the House was the first in either chamber of Congress to endorse statehood for the District of Columbia, and the first vote on the issue since 1993. The current effort ends there, as Republican opposition in the Senate assures defeat.

Democrats in 1993 were much less supportive of the idea, with 105 House members voting against it. Now they embrace it as popular with their supporters and as a chance to gain two new seats in the Senate and one in the House, given the partisan leanings of most D.C. residents. In Presidential elections since 2000 the Democrat has averaged 89% of the vote.

That tilt underpins Republican opposition. Joe Biden has said he would sign a bill to make D.C. a state if elected. For that to happen, Democrats would have to hold the House, win control of the Senate and figure out how to deal with an expected filibuster.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
facebook
twitter
email
email