A majority of Americans opposes statehood for the District of Columbia, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.
Sixty-nine percent of those polled said they oppose making the nation’s capital the 51st state, while 29 percent said they would be in favor of the idea. Eight percent had no opinion.
The survey comes as the U.S. House prepares for its first hearing on potentially granting statehood to D.C.{mosads}
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), D.C.’s non-voting delegate, introduced a bill earlier this year that would grant the district full representation in the U.S. as the 51st state, granting voting power to Norton in the House as well as guaranteeing representation in the Senate.
Norton’s office said 213 voting members of the House have signed on as co-sponsors to the bill. If it passed the House this year, it would likely face an uphill battle in the GOP-controlled Senate, as Republicans have traditionally opposed D.C. statehood.
A hearing on the bill was scheduled in Congress this week, but was postponed after a hearing of two House committees involving former special counsel Robert Mueller was moved to the same day.
Norton said on Saturday that a hearing on her bill will likely be pushed back until after Congress’s August recess.
A proposed constitutional amendment to grant D.C. statehood failed in 1978 and the House voted down similar legislation in 1993, Gallup noted.
The new poll was conducted June 19-30 among a sampling of 1,000 adult that did not include D.C. residents to reliably measure opinions on D.C. statehood. The survey has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.