It's really hard to do polling in countries living under authoritarian rule like Venezuela. I honestly don't know whether Venezuelans would tend to vote for a far-right party like the GOP as a rejection of their current socialist dictatorship, or tend to side with a center-left party as a desire for continued state intervention in the economy or rejection of the explicit racism of the modern GOP. My suspicion is that the Venezuelan diaspora would vote for the former, as the Cuban diaspora has, but I'm not sure about the folks that still live there.

Which, if anything, just shows how absolutely batshit insane the GOP is to reject Latinos, especially those that have extremely negative personal experiences living under socialism. It's hard to pick a potential voter demographic that's more likely to actively practice Christianity, embrace social and fiscal conservatism, be harder working, and be more entrepreneurial than Latinos. If it weren't for all the racism, I'm convinced Republicans would be cleaning up with a pro-immigrant/pro-Latino platform.

The last time we admitted new states, they were carefully counterbalanced between dominant parties. (Funnily enough, they’ve traded places in the 6+ decades since then.) As you point out, adding just one new state will make somebody/ies very unhappy politically.

A golden idol wasn't enough for him?

steve, steve, what are you doing?