The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected an attempt to implement a new Missouri congressional map endorsed by Donald Trump, resolving a protracted legal battle just as absentee voting commences for the midterm elections.
The justices stayed a federal appeals court ruling that would have reinstated the Republican-leaning map for the November contests, which will determine control of Congress. The order was issued without noted dissents.
Instead, the high court left intact a Missouri Supreme Court decision from earlier this month holding that a citizen petition bars the new map from use unless first approved by voters in a November referendum. Consequently, Missouri residents will cast ballots under the same congressional districts used in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
“At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2022 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos,” the Court wrote in an unsigned opinion. “The district court and court of appeals should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri.”
Republicans had hoped the revised House map — already used in the August primaries — would help them gain an additional seat as part of a nationwide redistricting effort championed by Trump to secure an advantage in the midterms.
A panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that switching districts between the primary and general elections would violate the U.S. Constitution. The panel directed a district judge to bar Missouri from using any map other than the new one but delayed the order’s effect until the following Monday to allow time for a Supreme Court appeal.
The legal turbulence has sowed confusion for more than a million potential Missouri voters — nearly one in four statewide — who were shifted between districts, resulting in different candidates appearing on their ballots. Absentee voting began Tuesday under the 2022 congressional districts, though some local election officials had urged voters to wait due to the legal uncertainty.
Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight House districts. At the urging of Trump and Republican Governor Mike Kehoe, Missouri lawmakers last September approved revised districts designed to help them win seven seats in the midterms.
The redistricting substantially reshaped the Kansas City-based district held by longtime Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver. It removed portions of Kansas City to neighboring districts with Republican incumbents and extended the remainder of Cleaver’s Fifth Congressional District far eastward into rural Republican areas.
The result was that about 59% of potential voters were new to the district, according to an Associated Press estimate. The ripple effects also shifted some voters in most of Missouri’s other congressional districts.
Cleaver ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. Republican state Senator Rick Brattin won a six-way Republican primary under the revised districts. Both remain the candidates for the general election, even though district boundaries have reverted to their prior lines. Brattin was a plaintiff, along with Republican Representative Bob Onder and two other voters, in the federal lawsuit that led to the Eighth Circuit’s ruling and the subsequent appeals to the Supreme Court.
At least 16 lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts related to Missouri’s congressional redistricting. The battle has been the longest and most complex among roughly a dozen states that sought to change their U.S. House districts over the past year.
Missouri’s new map survived most of the litigation, including challenges contending that mid-decade redistricting violated the state constitution and that the new districts failed to meet compactness requirements. In one case, the Missouri Supreme Court allowed the new districts to be used while election officials worked to verify petition signatures seeking a statewide vote on the map.
Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins waited until the legal deadline on August 4 — the day the new districts were used in the primaries — to reject the petition. He asserted that referendum petitions are not permitted for congressional redistricting.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled on September 3 that the referendum petition was valid. It ordered Hoskins not to use the new map and to instead use the districts adopted in 2022, after the last census. The U.S. Supreme Court let that ruling stand on September 8. Minutes later, however, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a conflicting order favoring the new map.
The U.S. Supreme Court on September 10 blocked Clark’s order from taking effect. That same day, the Missouri Supreme Court held Hoskins temporarily in contempt for instructing local election authorities to use the new map after Clark’s order.
The matter did not end there. The Eighth Circuit, hearing an appeal of Clark’s blocked order, ruled Monday in favor of the Trump-backed map. That decision prompted the latest ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
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