Under the referendum, the District would create a new state for its residential areas, leaving a smaller federal district that contained government buildings and monuments. Dealing with Bowser won’t be the only political intricacy Gray will have to navigate. Speaking to reporters just before polls closed, Bowser said she had already congratulated Gray and the other winners after their primary victories in June. On the statehood question, voters on Tuesday endorsed a draft constitution that would have city residents electing a governor, not a mayor, and a 21-seat state legislature instead of a city council. Over the summer, Clinton for the first time cast statehood as a presidential-election issue.  District voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum to make the nation’s capital its 51st state on Tuesday, with pollgoers saying they hope the vote puts pressure on the next Congress and president to address D.C.’s lack of representation in Congress. “This is what I’ve heard from D.C. residents all over the city. They want to be treated like every American. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump did not take a firm position on D.C. statehood during the campaign. TRUMP: Well, a lot of people don’t — you know, the finger means, “F you.” A lot of people think — and you have children there, you have a lot of children that go, you know, they go with their parents — a lot of people think that’s very inappropriate. The District has a population of more than 672,000 — larger than that of Vermont or Wyoming — and its residents pay more in federal taxes than do those in 22 states. They want two senators,” she said. People – somebody was interviewed, “Why are you here?” “Well, I don’t know, I’m not sure.” They didn’t even know. 1 of 23 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × What Election Day looks like in the D.C. area View Photos Washington Post photographers capture the region’s residents as they cast their votes. I said, well the generals are saying you’d need because they , what would it take to wipe out ISIS, I said pretty much exactly this, I said the generals, the military is saying you would need 20- to 30,000 troops, but I didn’t say that I would send them. Pressing federal leaders on statehood could be one area of cooperation for Bowser and the incoming Gray. I won’t rule anything out,” he said, breaking into a smile. It’s very hard to get your product in, and if you get it in you have to pay a very big tax. TRUMP: Well I’ll give you, I’ll give you an example. WASHINGTON — Voters in the nation’s capital have decided to support becoming the 51st state, though a vote for statehood doesn’t mean another star is getting added to the nation’s flag anytime soon. And the council backed Bowser in approving record spending on homeless shelters, which Gray tried to curtail as mayor. That means that if it were allowed to become a state, the District would probably elect two Democratic senators and a Democratic member of the House, improving odds for Democratic control of both chambers for decades to come. The retired recruiter said that she did not hold out hope that statehood would come soon but that it was an important message to the nation. So, what I said a couple of days later … and what happened is I was on line shaking hands with supporters, and one of supporters got up and he said, “Mr. You have good-sized hands.” And then another one would say, “You have great hands, Mr. Trump, I had no idea.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “I thought you were like deformed, and I thought you had small hands.” I had fifty people … Is that a correct statement? She dismissed questions about how well she might be able to work with the new council. Kathy Jasper, a third-generation Washingtonian, was among those who cast a vote in favor of the referendum. But Gray also warned he would not back down on issues where the two disagree: “I don’t have any hesitation in speaking up on the policy direction I think we should take,” he said. Related: Here’s What D.C. Would Be Called If It Became a State 
 
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 (© Copyright 2016 The Associated Press and CBS D.C. All Rights Reserved. City leaders will now submit the statehood proposal to Congress, which can admit a new state into the union by simply voting to approve the document. But in an interview with The Washington Post’s editorial board in the spring, he said statehood is a “tough thing.” 
 
 Bowser and statehood proponents had largely pinned their hopes for a national dialogue on the issue on the expected victory of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. “We’ve been trying for a long time, and we’ll keep on trying,” she said.
– A push to make Washington, DC, the nation's 51st state forged ahead Tuesday with voters in the district giving a thumbs-up to the initiative in an Election Day referendum, the Washington Post reports. Per NBC Washington, 86% of DC voters approved the referendum. "With massive turnout, District residents overwhelmingly voted to continue on our bold, new path to DC Statehood," Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote in a Tuesday evening Facebook post. "We will continue the march to convince the next President, Congress and the country that statehood for the District's 672,000 residents is a moral imperative." Despite serving in the military and having to pony up federal taxes, DC residents have no senators representing them, and only one congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who doesn't get to vote, notes the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. In a statement, Norton applauded the voters' decision, calling it "a kick in the pants" for Congress, per NBC. But the CBS DC notes that achieving statehood won't be an easy haul: The draft of the constitution that voters endorsed—complete with a spelling out of the proposed state's borders and the replacement of the mayor with a governor—will be presented to Congress, but GOPers would likely balk, since the two new Senate seats created for the state would almost certainly go to Democrats, as would the House representative seat. President-elect Donald Trump's take earlier this year to the Washington Post on DC's statehood drive: It's a "tough thing. ... I'd like to study it." Bowser says she'll present a petition to the new president and congressional leaders by Inauguration Day. (Check out the new name proposal that's been bandied about.)