Can Democrats Win The Senate By Adding States? It's Been Done Before

[DonViejo]

By Geoffrey Skelley

It’s been 60 years since a new state entered the union, but now Democrats and liberals are accelerating efforts to gain statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. One of their motivations is the future of the U.S. Senate, which is currently biased toward the Republican Party. The logic goes that if Democrats can get unified control of the federal government after the 2020 election, they could push through statehood for both, adding four more seats to the Senate, and all four would likely be Democratic leaning.

That might seem far-fetched, but the U.S. has a rich history of partisan state-making.

Democrats have reason to worry about the Senate — their party is reliant on a coalition of voters predominantly situated in and around major population centers, making it harder to compete in rural states, which get the same number of senators regardless of population. Indeed, the more densely populated a state is, the more it tends to lean Democratic.

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“It’s sort of a tilted playing field,” said Frances Lee, a political scientist at the University of Maryland who studies Congress’s upper chamber. “It’s easier for Republicans to elect a majority to the Senate than Democrats.”

Thirty-one states lean more Republican than the country as a whole, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric,2 so it’s easy to see why the party currently holds a 53-seat majority in the Senate.

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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-democrats-win-the-senate-by-adding-states-its-been-done-before/

[andym]

1. 31 states leaning GOP is bad news

in the USA. And 538 is correct that will make taking the Senate very difficult until that number changes.

[LeftinOH]

2. If anything, there are too many states...

North Dakota and South Dakota account for four Senators, but have a combined population equal to that of Phoenix AZ or Philadelphia PA. Montana, Wyoming and Idaho take up a huge chunk of the US map, but have a combined population which is equal to Arkansas.

Combining these 5 states into two would result in a somewhat more equitable distribution of Senators. This won't ever happen, though.

[maxsolomon]

3. California could balance the scales on its own

CA is 40 million. 2 Senators.

there are 6 states w/ under 1 million population. 12 senators.

CA divides into 40 states of 1 million each. 80 senators.

problem solved.

the floor recognizes the Senator from the great state of Marin!

[standingtall]

4. Democrats can control the Senate by adding States

but I don't think adding D.C. and Puerto Rico by themselves will do it. They need to add all inhabited U.S. territories as states as well. That would give Democrats about 10 to 12 new Senators, but they have to win the Senate and Presidency first. Whoever controls the Senate controls the supreme court plus adding states from the territories would be a great counter balance to the current electoral college which heavily favors rural white republicans.