New Bill of Rights

Rejected category · Weak floor (DC); statutory (PR)

Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico

Two jurisdictions, two results: DC statehood drew 13% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats (Yahoo News/YouGov, 2021); Puerto Rico drew 41% and 79% (YouGov, 2024) and can be admitted by statute.

Rejected 2026-08-18. A rejection is not a judgment that the issue doesn't matter — it is a judgment that the category cannot pass the full-spectrum test today. The evidence, the test, and the path back are below.

The proposal

Two jurisdictions share one condition — residents subject to federal taxes and the draft who send no voting member to either chamber of Congress — and differ in law. Puerto Rico’s admission would be by ordinary statute: Article IV, Section 3 provides that “New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union,” and thirty-seven states have entered under it.1 For the District, the enclave clause gives Congress “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” over the seat of government,2 and the Twenty-third Amendment grants electors to “the District constituting the seat of government”3 — which admission bills, by shrinking the district to a capital core, would leave in force for a residual district of very small population. The amendment as commonly framed would repeal the Twenty-third Amendment and admit the District’s residential territory, or give its residents congressional representation without statehood.

The evidence

We gated the two jurisdictions separately. For the District, the floor of record: asked about “making Washington, D.C., a separate state” in March 2021, 13% of Republicans supported and 64% opposed, against 64% of Democrats in support (Yahoo News/YouGov, 2021).4

Democrats: 64% 64% Dem Republicans: 13% 13% Rep Independents: 32% 32% Ind bipartisan floor · 13% (Republicans)
Making Washington, D.C., a separate state — Yahoo News/YouGov, 2021

Gallup asked the same question in 2019 and found 29% favor overall — 15% of Republicans, 30% of independents, and 39% of Democrats.5 Washington Examiner/YouGov put the Republican figure at 13% again in 2020, with 71% of Democrats.6

For Puerto Rico, the newest independent reading is conditional: “If the residents of Puerto Rico voted in favor of it, would you support or oppose making Puerto Rico a U.S. state?” drew 59% support — 79% of Democrats, 56% of independents, and 41% of Republicans (YouGov, 2024).7

Democrats: 79% 79% Dem Republicans: 41% 41% Rep Independents: 56% 56% Ind bipartisan floor · 41% (Republicans)
Making Puerto Rico a U.S. state if its residents vote for it — YouGov, 2024

Gallup’s unconditional ask in 2019 drew 66% favor — 45% of Republicans and 83% of Democrats, the highest Republican reading on record.8 The newest national reading covers both: in February 2026, DC statehood drew 32% support and 36% oppose — the only item in the pollster’s five-reform battery where opposition exceeded support — and Puerto Rico statehood 51% and 24%, with party figures published as net rather than raw support, so they set no floor (Strength In Numbers/Verasight, 2026).9 Residents of both have voted for statehood — 58.61% of valid votes in Puerto Rico’s 2024 plebiscite, about 49% of all ballots cast,10 and 85.69% in the District’s 2016 advisory referendum11 — but those measure local demand, not national consent. The roll calls diverge: the Puerto Rico Status Act passed the House in 2022 with 16 Republican yeas;12 the DC admission bill passed twice with none.1314

The test it failed

District of Columbia — the bipartisan floor, and the symmetry test. The floor is 13% of Republicans (Yahoo News/YouGov, 2021): Weak, and the lowest floor in our corpus, replicated at 13% in 2020 and bracketed at 15% in 2019 — the survey in which only 39% of Democrats favored it, so the proposal does not command a majority in the party that sponsors it.5 Support also tracks who holds power: from July 2020 to March 2021, across a change in Senate control and a House vote, Democratic support rose from 49% to 64% while Republican support fell from 23% to 13%.4 The symmetry test fails for the same reason. Admission is a one-time act with a known partisan result, not a rule binding future actors equally, so the devices that make a rule neutral — prospective effective dates, grandfathering — have no purchase on it. The legislative record shows the same shape: two House passages with no Republican yeas,1314 and a current bill whose 208 cosponsors all come from one party.15

Puerto Rico — the why-an-amendment test. Admission is a statute: Article IV, Section 3 supplies the mechanism and thirty-seven states have used it,1 so no court has struck a statute here, the text is not silent, and Congress is not exempting itself. An idea that is genuinely statutory is recorded and parked rather than drafted as an amendment, and Puerto Rico’s statutory route stays on our record. The polling would not have carried it in any event: 41% of Republicans in 20247 and 45% at the best independent reading ever taken8 — one Weak, one at the bottom edge of the Moderate band — and six independent readings run from 21% to 45% of Republicans against 63% to 86% of Democrats.166

Framings we tested

No framing clears the bar for either jurisdiction. For the District, the strongest reading on record is an argument frame — “taxation without representation” — which reached 42% of Republicans and 73% of Democrats in an advocacy-commissioned poll whose plain topline drew 34% of Republicans against 56% opposed (Data for Progress, 2021).17 An advocacy pollster testing its own best argument, in the issue’s highest-salience week, landing eighteen points below the Strong threshold is a ceiling, not a floor.

For Puerto Rico, the conditional wording gives 41% of Republicans and Gallup’s unconditional ask 45%. When a question named the federal-power consequence — Puerto Rico voting for President — Republican support fell from 43% to 38% within a single survey while Democratic support held at 77% (YouGov, 2019).18 Two framings have never been tested by any independent pollster: congressional representation for the District without statehood, and a binding federal process for Puerto Rico’s status.

The path back

For the District, the category reopens on an independent national poll with 2026-or-later fieldwork asking whether the roughly 700,000 U.S. citizens who live there should have voting representation in Congress, then naming the mechanism — statehood, representation by amendment without statehood, or retrocession to Maryland — with the remedy, not the grievance alone, clearing 60% among Republicans. A cross-party roll call on any DC representation measure would count on the same question. The route is narrow but specific: 74% of opponents objected that “D.C. was never meant to be a state,” against 17% citing partisan concerns (Morning Consult/Politico, 2021; no party breakdown published for that item)19 — an objection to statehood’s form rather than to representation itself, never polled. For Puerto Rico, no poll reopens the category as an amendment: the failing test is the mechanism, not the numbers.

Sources

  1. “New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state” — Cornell LII, U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1. ↩ ↩2

  2. Congress may “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may … become the seat of the government of the United States” — Cornell LII, U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 17. ↩

  3. Electors for “the District constituting the seat of government,” capped at the least populous state’s total — Cornell LII, U.S. Constitution, Twenty-third Amendment. ↩

  4. DC statehood: 13% R support / 64% R oppose; 64% D support / 13% D oppose; 32% I support / 37% I oppose; since July 2020, D support 49→64, R support 23→13, R opposition 51→64; n=1,556 adults, March 23–25, 2021 — Yahoo News/YouGov. ↩ ↩2

  5. “Would you favor or oppose making Washington, D.C., a separate state?”: 29% favor / 64% oppose / 8% no opinion — 15% R / 30% I / 39% D; trend 20% favor in 1992 (Yankelovich), 31% in 1989 (Washington Post); n=1,018 adults, June 19–30, 2019 — Gallup. ↩ ↩2

  6. Puerto Rico statehood 61% support / 27% oppose — 86% D / 61% I / 29% R; DC statehood 46% support / 40% oppose — 71% D / 45% I / 13% R (78% of Republicans opposed); n=1,200 registered voters, released November 3, 2020 — Washington Examiner/YouGov. ↩ ↩2

  7. “If the residents of Puerto Rico voted in favor of it, would you support or oppose making Puerto Rico a U.S. state?”: 59% support / 16% oppose / 25% not sure — 79% D / 56% I / 41% R (Republicans 41 support, 29 oppose, 31 not sure); n=7,200 U.S. adults, October 29, 2024 — YouGov daily result. ↩ ↩2

  8. Puerto Rico statehood: 66% favor / 27% oppose / 7% no opinion — 45% R / 69% I / 83% D; Gallup notes the result is “consistent with the 59% to 65% range of public support Gallup has recorded for Puerto Rico statehood since 1962”; n=1,018 adults, June 19–30, 2019 — Gallup. ↩ ↩2

  9. DC statehood 32% support / 36% oppose / 32% not sure; Puerto Rico statehood 51% support / 24% oppose. Party figures published as net support (support minus oppose), not raw support: DC net −25 R / −6 I / +15 D; Puerto Rico net −3 R / +21 I / +55 D. Five structural reforms tested; DC was the only item where opposition exceeded support and the only one net-negative among independents. n=1,566 U.S. adults, ±2.5, February 18–20, 2026 — Strength In Numbers/Verasight; topline release and methodology. ↩

  10. Puerto Rico status plebiscite, November 5, 2024, certified January 17, 2025: statehood 620,782 (58.61%), sovereignty in free association 313,259 (29.57%), independence 125,171 (11.82%) of 1,059,212 valid votes; 181,200 ballots (14.34%) blank and 23,141 invalid, of 1,263,553 cast and 1,987,317 registered — Ballotpedia, citing the Comisión Estatal de Elecciones; Wikipedia summary of the CEE certification. ↩

  11. District of Columbia advisory statehood referendum, November 8, 2016: Yes 244,134 (85.69%) / No 40,779 (14.31%) of 284,913 valid votes, turnout 64.98% — Wikipedia. ↩

  12. Puerto Rico Status Act, H.R. 8393 (117th Congress), passed the House 233–191 on December 15, 2022; Republicans 16–191, Democrats 217–0 — Clerk of the House, Roll Call 529. ↩

  13. Washington, D.C. Admission Act, H.R. 51 (117th Congress), passed the House 216–208 on April 22, 2021; Republicans 0–208, Democrats 216–0 — Clerk of the House, Roll Call 132. ↩ ↩2

  14. H.R. 51 (116th Congress), passed the House 232–180 on June 26, 2020; Republicans 0–178, Democrats 232–1 — Clerk of the House, Roll Call 122. ↩ ↩2

  15. H.R. 51, Washington, D.C. Admission Act (119th Congress), reintroduced January 3, 2025; 208 cosponsors, all Democrats — GovTrack; Senate companion S. 51, introduced January 9, 2025 — GovTrack. ↩

  16. Puerto Rico statehood 43% favor / 31% oppose — 63% D / 45% I / 21% R (58% of Republicans opposed); DC statehood 36% favor / 37% oppose / 27% unsure; n=1,500 adult citizens, April 25–27, 2021 — Economist/YouGov. ↩

  17. “Taxation without representation” framing: 42% R / 73% D, the highest Republican share the pollster found. Topline on “granting statehood to the more than 714,000 people who live in Washington D.C., so they can elect voting Senators and Representatives”: 54% support / 35% oppose / 11% don’t know — 34% R support (17 strongly, 17 somewhat) against 56% opposed, 51% I, 74% D (45 strongly); 38% of Republicans strongly opposed against 6% of Democrats. n=1,526 likely voters, web panel, ±3, February 19–22, 2021; advocacy-commissioned — Data for Progress / Democracy for All 2021 Action. ↩

  18. Puerto Rico statehood 57% completely or somewhat support / 18% oppose — 77% D / 56% I / 43% R; Puerto Rico voting for President 38% R / 47% I / 77% D; DC statehood 34% support / 30% oppose / 36% don’t know; n=1,251 adults, August 21–22, 2019 — YouGov. ↩

  19. DC statehood 40% support / 32% oppose — 62% D support, 59% R oppose; among DC-statehood opponents, 74% “D.C. was never meant to be a state,” 17% partisan concerns; Puerto Rico statehood 45% support / 52% oppose — 26% R support / 52% R oppose; n=1,992 registered voters, April 16–19, 2021 — Morning Consult/Politico. ↩

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