Vice President Kamala Harris said this week that if Democrats regain control of the House and Senate in the 2026 midterms, she wants to pursue expanding the Supreme Court, changing how presidential elections are decided, and granting statehood to Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
Harris made the remarks Tuesday on Keke Palmer’s podcast, “Baby, This is Keke Palmer.”
“The work that we can do about winning back the House and the Senate is going to be on a number of things. For example, I believe that we need to expand the Supreme Court. We need more justices on the Supreme Court so that we can have a court that actually reinforces the spirit and principles behind the Constitution of the United States,” Harris said.
She went on to describe additional structural changes she would support.
“I believe that we should be pushing for what is possible around changing the Electoral College. Right? It’s about, the popular vote has to matter, right? You know, all the things that make people feel, like, overwhelmed, and does their vote matter? We have, you know, listen, if the folks there want it, we should be pushing for statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C., right? These are some of the things that are structural that we need to do, but we need to reestablish affordable child care,” Harris said.
Harris did not specify how many justices she would want added to the nine-member Supreme Court, nor did she outline a legislative path for any of the changes. Expanding the Supreme Court would require an act of Congress, since the number of justices is set by statute rather than the Constitution. The last serious attempt to add seats to the Court came under President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, when the Senate blocked his proposal.
Changing how the Electoral College functions, or eliminating it in favor of a national popular vote, would require a constitutional amendment, a process that demands approval from two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Harris also renewed calls for statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., both long-standing Democratic priorities, and said Democrats need to “reestablish affordable child care” — a reference to child care policy efforts that stalled during the Biden administration, when Democrats held control of both chambers of Congress during the first two years of the term.
The 2026 midterm elections, which will determine control of the House and Senate, are just under three weeks away.
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