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hello and welcome to another tldr us video it's safe to say by now that a lot went down on november 3rd this year and most know how those results panned out the former vice president joe biden won the white house the republicans have so far kept the senate and the house is in a precarious position but there were other issues being voted on too and few are more interesting than the ballot referendum that took place nearly a thousand miles southeast of miami in the american territory of puerto rico on puerto rican ballots which contained local candidates there was the eternally vexing question of puerto rican statehood and when the votes were in encountered 52.34 of voters said yes the island ought to be admitted as the 51st state and as you might remember from a previous video this year a resolution also passed the house back in june that sought to make washington dc a state too so needless to say the topic of adding more stars to the stars and stripes seems to be quite the issue at the moment so with the election now behind us let's take a look at the past this could take and how this could shape the medium-term future of american governance if you haven't already please subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon not only does that mean you'll get future updates from us but you can also think of it as your christmas present to us thanks so much for your support as a quick refresher puerto rico is a us territory along with guam the us virgin islands the northern marina islands and american samoa while washington dc is a federal district the territories and district have a number of differences from states but for the purposes of this video there's only one that you really need to know about states get a vote in national politics and territories don't territories don't get to cast votes in the presidential election though washington dc does and neither has voting members of congress like all states do though each sends one non-voting delegate to the house but while the presidential drama is all fine and dandy the real issue worth focusing on here is the senate there are currently a hundred seats in the senate with each state allotted too under article 1 of the constitution broken down by party the republicans will once the new session is sworn in this coming january holds somewhere between 50 and 52 seats while the democrats will hold between 48 and 50. this uncertainty is because of the two georgia runoffs that are set to be held on january 5th we actually made a video about that fun southern situation so if you want a better idea of what on earth is going on in the peach state then feel free to check out that video there's a link in the description but for reasons we'll get onto in a moment let's say the democrats pull a win in both leaving the final margin for the next two years as a 50-50 split with vice president kamala harris as the tiebreaker which gives the democrats effective control it will be a very tedious and moderate control but it would still be control now let's say that puerto rico and dc are both made states that will bring the total number of seats in the senate up to 104 with it being likely that all four of the new seats will go to the democrats this would move the margin significantly in the democrats favor with the new party breakdown coming out at a 54-50 split the longer term implications of this would be massive but let's take a look at how we could even get to this situation in order for dc and puerto rico to both become states democrats would almost certainly need to win both seats in georgia why because with both the caribbean island and the nation's capital both likely being democratic strongholds republicans are very hesitant to grant them any national voting rights the gop would if they voted for dc and puerto rican statehood be effectively shooting themselves in the foot twice and becoming the republican senator who gave the senate to the democrats for a generation sounds like a really good way to get yourself primaried unless you plan on switching parties that is of course we should add that the dynamic is a tad more nuance than such a simple explanation allows for well for puerto rico at least dc is going blue that's not up for speculation or caveat in the 15 presidential elections dc's voted in its three electoral votes have gone to the republican party a total of zero times this november president trump won 5.4 percent of washington votes five so yeah dc is not sending republicans to the senate anytime soon puerto rico on the other hand does deserve a bit more nuance here with a population of about 3.2 million the caribbean island is a large and diverse entity in fact their non-voting representative in the house is currently republican to be clear the island would almost certainly lean left but it's not unreasonable to think that republicans would have a fighting chance for a senate seat or two if they fielded the right candidates but anyway such nuance is unlikely to sway many republican senators with 50 seats democrats would barely scrape together a passing majority but remember this is the senate we're talking about so there's one more wrinkle the filibuster which requires 60 votes to overcome that would mean that 10 republicans would have to be wooed over and while a couple of gop senators rick scott and marco rubio being the most obvious have endorsed the idea of puerto rican statehood finding another eight would be difficult and that's not even to mention the much less popular idea of making dc estates which would almost certainly get jack squat from the gop of course the democrats could go nuclear and get rid of the filibuster but such a violation on a perceived cornerstone of modern senate tradition could backfire spectacularly both in the court of public opinion and in the senate itself when the democrats find themselves in a position of wanting to use the filibuster themselves basically getting state of bills to the president's desk would be a monumental task for an already precariously balanced senate to say nothing of the suddenly weakened house majority however of the two puerto ricans seems like the one most likely to win over bipartisan support i mean the 2016 republican platform even endorsed statehood for the island but let's for a moment just assume that one way or another both dc and puerto rico are granted statehood what happens then well in essence the republicans are in a rather problematic situation with the generally slim margins in the senate adding any number of solid seats to either party has the potential to shift the dynamics in washington adding four well that'll be massive given that in the average election casting aside the effects of the occasional republican wave or democratic wave the gop would have a significantly harder battle in its quest to hold on to its traditional power in the upper chamber and this would mean that two things would often happen the first possibility is the simple idea of more frequent democratic control this obviously would make passing liberal legislation much easier than it's often been additionally the two to four seat cushion added by the new states could help protect the democrats from the backlash an incumbent president's party often faces in the midterms like that of 2010. with this democrats would have a far easier path to passing massive healthcare reform or even overhauling environmental policy the other thing that would likely happen as a result of statehood for dc and puerto rico is a slight moderating effect on the senate republican conference right now there's not a lot of traditional moderates or centrists in the gop in general whenever the democrats are looking to sway a few votes they know where to look susan collins of maine lisa makowski of alaska and mitt romney of utah but after that the pickings become very slim but if republicans wanted to keep a viable chance of controlling the senate their conference would have to tolerate some much more centrist members the kind of republican it would take to win puerto rico or some of the older swing states and centre-left states would usually be quite different from most of the other republicans this would create a situation similar to the one currently best embodied by joe manchin the senior senator from west virginia though manchin is a democrat his association with the party is loose and he often strays quite far away from the party line and for good reason west virginia is one of the most conservative states in the union and endorsing medicare for all isn't exactly gonna win you a lot of friends in the trump voting mountain county but at the end of the day the unknown factors here really make predicting much beyond that unreasonable maybe republicans would swing left in a few states and we'd be right back with an even split maybe republicans would solely become an opposition party for a decade or more but whichever reality you choose to believe would occur in a world of 52 u.s states it's worth noting that even a democratic trifecta if ossoff and warnock end up winning in georgia would struggle to make significant changes to modern politics but hey four years ago a mid-tier reality tv host donald trump run the presidency so who knows will be in another four years maybe the us will make all of its territory states maybe it will liberate them maybe it will do nothing at all ultimately only time will tell be sure to subscribe to channel to find out more about this issue and others special thanks to our patreon backers who make videos like this one possible and if you want to see your name at the end of videos then you too can back us on patreon the link to that's in the description you