
Democrats face a structural problem in national politics: A good-sized majority of American voters support the party, but that currently translates into a tenuous hold on government. One straightforward solution—some say—is to restructure things by adding more states. Numerous left-leaning analysts, looking at the long-term disadvantages Democrats face in the House and even more so the Senate, where sparsely populated, rural, red areas are overrepresented, have concluded that it is imperative that the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, presumably blue, be added as states as soon as possible.