There is a call for making Washington, D.C. the nation's 51st state, but according to a new Gallup Poll, most Americans continue to disagree.
According to the poll, conducted from June 19-30 about making the district a state, 64% oppose the move, while 29% favor it.
Overall results:
- 40% of liberals favor statehood.
- 39% of Democrats approve.
- 30% of independents approve.
- 15% of Republicans disapprove.
- 14% of conservatives disapprove.
The House Oversight Committee had planned a hearing for July 24 on D.C. statehood, marking the first time in more than 25 years the issue will have come before Congress, reports The Washington Post. However, the hearing was postponed until the fall so as not to conflict with the testimony of former special counsel Robert Mueller.
The Constitution allows the District of Columbia to have electoral votes during presidential elections, but it does not have voting members in the House or Senate, even though Congress can block policies passed by city officials, Gallup notes.
The "51 for 51" campaign will likely fail without a Democratic majority in Congress, however, as the city is seen as a primarily Democratic region and accepting it as a new state would likely add one Democrat to the House and two more to the Senate.
The survey, which sampled just over 1,000 adults, didn't include enough D.C. residents themselves to determine local opinion, but support for the measure was highest in states in the East, including D.C. and Maryland.
The data also suggested that both Democrats and Republicans in eastern states are more supportive of the district becoming a state than were Democrats and Republicans in other states.
The Gallup Poll was based on telephone interviews conducted from a random sample of 1,018 adults ages 18 and older and carried a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
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