By Jess Sharplive news reporter in Washington DC

The economy, the war in the Middle East and immigration are just a few of the issues voters have mentioned to me today, but for Kelsye Adams the most important issue in this election is achieving statehood for DC.

The DC Vote organizing director is just one of many people who headed to Metrobar to share their message.

Washington DC, despite housing the federal government buildings, is not and has never been a state.

Instead, Washington is a city within the territory of the District of Columbia.

This means that residents have no elected officials in the Senate and the area’s House of Representatives representative does not have full voting powers.

Kelsye explained to me that the district has no representation in government, despite having a population larger than two states.

“We are the only country where people who live in their nation’s capital have no voice in the federal government,” he said.

“You would think that the United States was the hegemonic power and, based on all these principles of freedom and democracy, I suppose we left justice aside, because we forgot about 700,000 Americans.

“This is a target against people of color. We were just born and they say we can’t have a voice in Congress and ‘there’s no senator for you.'”

The 33-year-old said D.C. was created to house the federal government after an insurrection during the creation of the constitution in Philadelphia in 1776.

But he added that the Jan. 6 riot showed it was no longer a “safe space” for elected officials.

“It was created to protect the federal government from an insurrection, but it was an insurrection and the lack of statehood is the reason it couldn’t defend itself,” he said, explaining that the mayor couldn’t call in the national guard.

“If we had been a state, we would have avoided an insurrection,” he added.

So what does all this have to do with the presidential elections?

To become a state, Congress or the president must pass a bill.

“When you think about power, about winning something in a political space, there has to be a shift in power, and no one wants to be the person who lost power,” Kelsye said.

“We know for a fact that Harris will fight for DC statehood.”

I asked him what he thought a Trump presidency would mean for his cause, and he said it would “surely be chaotic for DC.”

He stressed the importance of voting and said he wants “people in all 50 states” to realize that Washingtonians don’t have a representative who can fight for them.

“If you don’t want to fight, that’s perfectly fine, but what I ask people is to vote for him. The fact that he doesn’t have representation in Congress is just a feeling of fury,” he added.