“People just don’t see the reason why D.C. should be a state,” Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones told POLITICO. “They're comfortable with the status quo.” | Angela Weiss/Getty Images for The Creative Coalition politics Poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose D.C. statehood

Every Democrat running for president in 2020 has come out in favor of making Washington, D.C., the nation’s 51st state. But a new Gallup poll found support for granting full statehood to D.C. as low as ever — across the political spectrum.

The Gallup survey, the firm’s first national poll on the issue, found 29 percent of adults polled in June support statehood, and 64 percent oppose it. While support was slightly higher among women, nonwhite voters and self-identified Democrats, no group had even close to a majority of respondents in favor.


“People just don’t see the reason why D.C. should be a state,” Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones told POLITICO. “They're comfortable with the status quo.”

That's not the case in the Democratic political class: Pete Buttigieg has made it a plank of his racial justice platform. Michael Bennet included D.C. statehood in his sweeping political reform plan. A record 216 House members have co-sponsored a bill to put the District on equal footing with states — just two shy of the 218 votes needed to pass the bill in the lower chamber.

But as public opinion has shifted wildly over the past few decades on everything from LGBT rights to "tough on crime" legislation, it has remained nearly static on the question of D.C. statehood. And, Jones noted, it’s not as though the American public is opposed to adding any new states at all.

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“We have found, historically, support for making Puerto Rico a state, and people supported making Alaska and Hawaii states [in the 1950s],” he said. “But there’s something different about DC. Certainly, people aren’t very positive about the federal government, so it’s possible some of that rains down on DC’s population and local government.”

Republicans remain vocal and explicit about their opposition, noting that D.C. would likely elect Democrats to Congress, eroding their political power. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in June that it would be “full-bore socialism” to give the District political representation.

“As long as I’m the majority leader of the Senate, none of that stuff is going anywhere,” he said.

An opportunity for statehood advocates to turn the tide of public could come in the fall, when a House committee will hold the first hearing in more than 25 years on a bill to grant the District statehood rights and full representation in Congress.

“They need to make a compelling case beyond the partisan issue and raise some more philosophical reasons,” Jones says. “D.C. could engender some sympathy around [the] issue of taxation without representation — something this country has been concerned about for about 300 years. But if it’s seen as a partisan issue, something Democrats are pursuing overtly or covertly to increase their numbers, it’s not going to happen.”