I think some of you know what I’m going to say here:
I fully support the admission of a State of New Columbia (or, even better, the State of Douglass) that includes all of DC except for the White House, Congress, etc.,
PLUS Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William and Loudon counties and Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas and Manassas Park cities from VA, and
PLUS Montgomery, Prince George’s, Charles and (if we can swing this) Howard counties from MD.
The new state would be overwhelmingly Democrat, but it would make MD a relatively competitive state (with Democrats having the advantage, but not that big of one) and it would make VA a solidly GOP state. The Democrats would gain 2 Senate seats from DC, but 2 Democrat-held seats in VA would become Republican seats within a few years. And our 2012, 2016 and 2020 EVs from the region would have gone from 26 D, 0 R to 16 D, 10 R, so Trump would have gotten to 270 in 2016 even without PA, MI and WI and to 269 in 2020 merely by winning GA and AZ.
It is beyond me why congressional Republicans, and Presidents Bush and Trump, for that matter, didn’t spend the past 20 years talking about how DC needed suburban counties to join it so that it can have the tax base and diversified economy to become a state and to shame VA and MD into giving up those counties so that DC residents can finally be fully enfranchised.
Pete, forgot to ping you for #18. It’s Impy’s fault, really. : )
Excellent idea.
You seem to have forgotten the fact that creating a new state out of existing states requires the approval of the legislatures of those states as well as Congress. Not going to happen.