Paul Waldman makes the argument for D.C. statehood (boldface mine):

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has spent months dancing gingerly around the White House, trying to balance two incompatible needs.

On one hand, her constituents despise President Trump (he lost the 2024 election in DC by an incredible 90-6 margin), so she doesn’t want to look like a weakling, knuckling under to him at every turn. On the other hand, she knows how vindictive he is, which means that if she doesn’t placate him he could use his power to do even more damage to the city than he already has…

The reason Bowser and the 700,000 people she represents are in this situation is that the District of Columbia is not a state. She could try to stand up to Trump in the way governors including JB Pritzker and Wes Moore have done, but she won’t, because Trump has too many levers of power he can use to take revenge on DC…

Had you asked any elected Democrat what their position is on DC statehood at any time in the last few years, the answer would have been, “DC statehood? Sure, I’m for that.” But if you followed up by asking When? or What are you planning to do about it?, the answer would have been “Um … well … eventually, it should happen, and I’ll be happy to vote for it when it does.”

But they haven’t actually done anything about it. The most statehood advocates have gotten from the leaders of the party is symbolic gestures…

Like every other Democrat running for president in 2020, Biden endorsed statehood during the campaign. But he too did little to make it happen, other than endorsing a statehood bill that passed the House in 2021 but predictably died in the Senate…

If Democrats want to make voters care about DC statehood, their elected officials have to start acting like they care about it. They have to talk about it — a lot — and if they’re running for president they have to not just endorse it but promise to push for it, hard. They should pledge that in their first year in the White House there will be a statehood measure voted on in Congress. They should demand that a statehood bill be exempt from the filibuster. And if the bill fails that year, they should keep advocating for it, and bring it back again and again until it succeeds. Eventually, the campaign for statehood could become not a third-tier issue but something that defines what it means to be a Democrat.

Where I disagree with Waldman is, after watching professional Democrats for the last nine months, it’s clear the Democratic Party as an institution isn’t committed to D.C. statehood (e.g., the number of Democratic House members who voted for Republican alterations to D.C. anti-crime legislation). The only way this changes is if Democratic primary voters make D.C. statehood an issue.

Not only would Democrats gain two Senate seats, but there’s a good chance they would be more than DINOs–they might actually be worth a damn (including being two senators beholden to urban, not suburban, concerns). But more importantly, if they’re not willing to fight for every American’s political representation, then they’ll be willing to throw you under the bus too, if it’s convenient. D.C. statehood is an excellent litmus test for a commitment to freedom, and, unlike other issues, it doesn’t revolve around whether one is a neoliberal, liberal, or progressive, nor does it tap into arguments about ‘abundance’: a commitment to D.C. statehood is about expanding our democracy, and every Democrat should be in favor of that.

Importantly, we also need to get current senators and hopeful candidates on the record about exempting the legislation from the filibuster (Waldman is absolutely right here) because it’s not enough to for candidates to say they support the bill, if they know it will never reach the senate floor. That’s a cop out.

It’s time for Democratic primary voters to stop being such cheap dates and actually demand this from senate candidates.