Democrats may have won the Senate. But the Senate is still structurally rigged against Democrats to an absurd degree.

Cumulatively from 2016 to 2020, Democrats won 25 million more votes for Senate than Republicans. And that was *only* enough to bring the Senate to a 50-50 tie.

By far the biggest structural problem with the Senate is that every state gets 2 senators regardless of population.

That means 17% of the U.S. population controls half the Senate seats, making the Senate one of the most unbalanced legislative chambers in the world.

BUT! That in and of itself is not the reason why Democrats are at a disadvantage in the Senate.

After all, there are many small states — Delaware, Hawaii, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island — that either sometimes or always elect Democrats.

The real problem for Democrats is that most *nonwhite* small jurisdictions in the United States don't have statehood, but most white small jurisdictions do.

That means millions of nonwhite voters who should have outsized power in the Senate do not.

If I could wave a magic wand, I'd just abolish the Senate outright. I no longer believe it is useful.

But that's not going to happen — to amend the Senate out of the Constitution would require approval from at least a dozen small states who benefit from the current structure.

The more realistic path to reforming the Senate is to admit as states all nonwhite jurisdictions that lack representation.

DC and Puerto Rico already voted to be states, they should be first. We should also give the option to Guam, American Samoa, USVI and the Northern Marianas.

(Sidenote: the Northern Marianas are actually a Republican-leaning territory! But we're addressing a fundamental question of voter enfranchisement, so I'm gonna stick to my principles and say they deserve the choice to be a state too.)