Dem
47
GOP
53
Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. Have we mentioned that before? We forget. Donald Trump is operating on the spheres of influence model, in which the U.S. gets to run the Western Hemisphere, Russia gets to run Europe, and China gets to run Asia. So naturally he wants to annex Canada. He hasn't thought this out very well.
Let us first consider the idea of Canada becoming the 51st state. If it were one state, it would be geographically the biggest state by far—after all, it is now the second biggest country in the world by area. Texans wouldn't like being demoted to third place (after Canada and Alaska). They barely tolerate Alaska, but it is far away near the North Pole and, as far as they know, people live in igloos and eat raw walruses, so it doesn't count. Canada isn't like that.
The population of Canada is 40.1 million—more than the population of California at 39.4 million. It would be the biggest new state ever. When new states are added to the union, the allocation of the House of Representatives is increased to accommodate the new state. Since Canada has more people than California, it would probably get 52 or 53 House seats. Almost all politicians in Canada are way to the left of the Republicans and most are way to the left of the Democrats. Private health insurance? No thanks. Abortion bans? Not going to fly. Probably 40 or more of the new representatives would either be Democrats or would be a Canadian party that would caucus with the Democrats. The Republicans would never win the House again. They seem to have missed that. Of course, Canada would get only two senators, but both would almost certainly be Democrats.
What about presidential elections? There was a poll of Canadians in October 2024 asking whom they would vote for in the U.S. election if they could. The results were Harris 64%, Trump 21%, 15% uncertain. But wait, if Canada got 54 or 55 electoral votes and went with a winner-take-all system, Harris would have won the presidency in a landslide. In fact, if Canada became a state, Republicans could probably never win the presidency again. Or the House. So all the Republicans could hope for would be the Senate.
Now suppose the Canadians were smart and said: "OK, we'll join, but our provinces and territories each have their own characteristics, so each one wants to be its own state." Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories, so that would be 13 new states—meaning 26 new senators, probably nearly all of them Democrats or parties allied with the Democrats. Also, then the number of electoral votes would be 52 or 53 + 26 = 78 or 79 EVs, probably all of them going to the Democrats. The Democrats would then have the trifecta permanently and Canada would be such a powerful bloc that it could basically dictate terms to the rest of Congress. Also, on Jan. 20, 2029, President Trudeau would be inaugurated. This might not have been what Trump was thinking of.
But none of this is going to happen because Canadians are having none of it. They used to like Americans, but their love is slipping away on account of Trump and, especially, his tariffs. Recent polling shows that Canadians are very skeptical of Trump's tariffs, much more than Americans. Here are the respective numbers for the questions of whether the tariffs hurt the economy.
As you can see, Canadians are much more negative about all the effects of the tariffs than Americans for all the questions that were asked in both polls. The only number that was under 50% was that only 44% of Americans think they will hurt the U.S. economy. The other 56% was split between "help the economy" (31%) and "neutral" (9%), and "unsure" (16%). (V)