The UP has a tiny population (like 300,000), so it could never become a state.
Here’s what I wrote a few years ago about how DC residents should be given the benefits of statehood, but only if they form a state that includes DC and its Democrat suburbs in MD and VA: http://auh2orepublican.blogspot.com/2005/08/fair-and-reasonable-alternative-to-dc.html
You know that will go no where. I highly doubt Puerto Rico will become a state. 51 states doesn’t poll well.
It’s funny, in 2008, my friends and I joked about taking over the UP and making it our own country. It’s not so funny now. Who’d care about the UP?