Days after runoff elections in Georgia delivered Democrats an unexpected Senate majority, the team behind 51 for 51, an advocacy group fighting for D.C. statehood, gathered on Zoom to discuss its next steps. “There is nothing in the way of us finally granting statehood to over 700,000 residents of Washington, D.C.,” said Stasha Rhodes, the campaign director, her frameless glasses glinting in the glare of her computer screen. “We now see the light at the end of a very dark, undemocratic tunnel.”
Rhodes asked the campaign’s lead organizers, three native Washingtonians in their early to mid-20s, how they hoped to focus their efforts in the first days of the Biden administration. Ty Hobson-Powell, seated on his couch in a sweatshirt with the word “American” scrawled across the front, suggested putting pressure on senators who had already pledged support for D.C. statehood. Jamal Holtz raised the importance of talking to voters in states whose senators had expressed ambivalence. Demi Stratmon proposed an expanded media campaign. “I want statehood to happen in the first 100 days,” she said. “I don’t want it to be pushed to the back burner anymore.”