Why making Canada a state would backfire on Trump

A new Trump administration, a new country Trump wants to force to be the 51st state.

In 2019, Donald Trump tried to buy Greenland from Denmark, an absurd offer the Danish government rejected. And while a state of Greenland lives on in Trump’s heart—on Tuesday, he floated taking it by force—his eyes have drifted westward as well, to the Great White North. 

“Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State,” Trump wrote Monday on his Truth Social platform. “If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!”

But this wasn’t just a fleeting thought fired off from the john. In early December, Trump referred to the Canadian prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” And on Christmas Day, Trump wrote his belated list for Santa, saying he wanted Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal under his tree. (Santa gave him the coal shoulder.)

Of course, as Trudeau himself put it on Tuesday, “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.”

But if we treat Trump seriously, what would the state of Canada look like? 

Well, for one thing, it would make it a lot harder for Republicans to win control of Washington.

Wait, Canada has how many political parties?

Canada has two major political parties (the Conservative and Liberal parties), two close-to-major parties (the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois), and a scattering of others, such as the left-leaning Green Party and the far-right People’s Party of Canada. Only five parties—all of those listed above, except the PPC—have representation in Parliament.

Those parties don’t map perfectly onto the U.S.’s Democratic and Republican parties, however. While the Liberal Party, New Democratic Party, and Bloc Québécois are all on the left side of the political spectrum, the Conservative Party would appear to many Americans as if Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican moderate, had her own party. (Canadians, if you’re reading this, I know the comparison is imperfect. Do not email me!)

Canada’s Conservatives like to cut taxes, are more skeptical of climate change, and support other right-leaning policies, but its 2023 platform also says it “will not support any legislation to regulate abortion” and will support a “universal, public health care system”—policies that sound to these American ears as left-leaning. That being said, the Conservatives do prefer some types of health privatization, and there are signs the party is drifting to the right.

Who would Canadians vote for?

Canadians who back the Conservative Party likely wouldn’t be in the tank for America’s MAGAfied GOP.

Leger, a well-rated Canadian-owned pollster, regularly surveys Canadians about U.S. elections, and its data shows they strongly favor Democrats. In the 2024 election, 64% would’ve voted for Harris and only 21% for Trump. That would’ve been Harris’ best result in any state (with the exception being the district of Washington, D.C.), just beating out Vermont. 

And among Canadians who back the Conservative Party? They’re pretty split: 42% would’ve gone for Harris and 45% for Trump. 

That preference holds across elections too. In the 2022 midterms, 42% of Canadians would’ve backed a Democratic candidate, while only 14% would’ve backed a Republican, according to Leger’s polling. (The “don’t know” option came in No. 2, at 33%.) And the 2020 election showed an even deeper margin: 81% of Canadians would’ve voted for Joe Biden, compared with just 19% for Trump.

In fact, the most pro-GOP Canadians appear to be those who pledge allegiance to the fringe People’s Party of Canada, founded in 2018. The PPC’s platform includes “deporting illegals,” combating “gender ideology,” and other standard Republican culture-war fare. Hell, the PPC’s website even traffics in eye-rolling epithets like “radical woke activists.” So it makes sense that 66% of PPC-backing Canadians would’ve gone for Trump in 2024, according to Leger’s poll. That said, a shocking 22% would’ve backed Harris. 

Altogether, the state of Canada would likely be among the most Democratic in the union.

So what would that mean? 

Tipping the scales

Canada has roughly 41.5 million people, according to the most recent government data. That’s about 2 million more than California, which would make the state of Canada by far the biggest prize in the Electoral College. 

How big? Electoral votes are derived from a sum of a state’s House and Senate seats. Canada would pull in 48 House seats, according to 2020 U.S. census figures and the Census Bureau’s formula for calculating reapportionment. Adding in the two standard Senate seats means the state of Canada would have a massive 50 electoral votes.

Worse for Republicans, those votes would disproportionately come from states that backed Trump in 2024. Twenty-eight votes would’ve come from Trump states and 20 from Harris states. And yet, if the state of Canada had gone for Harris (as expected), it wouldn’t have been enough to close the gap for her. Trump would’ve pulled in 284 electoral votes to Harris’ 256.

Looking downballot, there are big gains for Democrats. If Democrats pulled in 64% of Canada’s expected 48 House seats—i.e., the same share that backed Harris in the Leger poll—Democrats would pull in 31 seats to Republicans’ 17, a net gain of 14. That’s more than enough to flip the chamber.

Of course, the math here is far from perfect. For one thing, congressional map lines would play the biggest role in determining which party picks up the most House seats. And it’s as easy to imagine Republicans narrowing that 31-17 gap as it is to imagine Canadian Democrats wringing even more seats out of the state via gerrymandering.

As for the Senate—well, Canada’s two senators, almost surely Democrats, wouldn’t put the party into the majority. Instead of the current 53-47 Republican majority, we’d be looking at 53-49. But that would mean Democrats need two fewer Republican defections to sink a bill (if the White House were under Republican control).

Again, there’s no chance in the foreseeable future that Canada will become the 51st state, but, lucky for Democrats, there are far better options to grow the union—and their caucus.