DC Has More People Than Some States Already Have

“Isn’t DC too small to be a state?”

It is one of the most common objections to DC statehood, and it does not hold up against the numbers.

DC has a population larger than Wyoming and larger than Vermont, both of which have two senators and a voting member of the House. Nobody questions whether Wyoming or Vermont belongs in the union. Size was never the test.

Here is the part that surprises most people: DC has more residents than every single state had at the moment it was admitted to the union. California, the next closest comparison, had only about 92,000 residents when it became a state in 1850. Nevada had just 21,000 residents when it was admitted in 1864. DC’s population today is nearly 700,000, and that number has never been a requirement for statehood at any point in American history.

The “too small” argument treats population as if it were a constitutional threshold. It is not. The Constitution sets no minimum population for statehood. Congress has admitted states with a few thousand residents and states with millions, using the same simple process every time: a vote in both chambers, a presidential signature.

What DC actually has, beyond population, is an economy with a larger GDP than 17 states. It has residents who pay more in federal taxes per capita than any state in the country, and more in total federal taxes than 20 states combined. It has sent more soldiers per person to fight in America’s wars than most states. By every practical measure that statehood has ever depended on, DC qualifies.

The size argument is not really about size. It is a stand-in for a different, more honest question: should DC get two senators. That is a fair question to debate. But it should be debated on its own terms, not disguised as a concern about population, because the population numbers simply do not support it.