Supreme Court Kills Missouri's GOP Redistricting Map for Good, Third Loss for Trump-Backed Plan This Month

Since Missouri's Supreme Court ruled in early September that the state's 2025 congressional map couldn't be used without voter approval, the fight over which district lines apply in November has bounced between state courts, a federal district court, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court three separate times. On Friday, September 25, the Supreme Court ended it. The justices sided with the 2022 map, the one used in 2022 and 2024, and told lower courts to stop trying to revive the newer plan.

The unsigned opinion, with no noted dissents, didn't mince words. "Ballots using the 2022 map have been printed and mailed," the court wrote, according to CNN. "Absentee voting has already begun, as has military and overseas voting. Ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos."

How it got here

Missouri lawmakers passed the 2025 map last September at the urging of President Trump and Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, part of a broader nationwide push by Trump to redraw GOP-friendly districts mid-decade and protect the House majority, according to NPR. The new lines targeted Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's Kansas City-based 5th District, shedding urban precincts and stretching the district deep into rural, Republican-leaning territory. An Associated Press estimate found roughly 59% of voters in that district would have been new to it, per The Guardian.

That map was used in the August 4 primary. But opponents, organized under the group People Not Politicians Missouri and led by executive director Richard von Glahn, had already gathered enough citizen signatures to force a November referendum on the map. Missouri's Supreme Court ruled the map never legally took effect without that vote, and blamed Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins for running the primary on it anyway, according to CBS News.

From there the case ping-ponged. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency Missouri appeals, rejected the state's first bid to revive the map on September 8. Two days later the full court blocked a separate federal court order that would have forced the 2025 map into use. Then, on Monday, September 22, a three-judge 8th Circuit panel ruled the opposite way, saying switching maps between a primary and general election violated the Constitution, and ordered the 2025 lines reinstated. A federal district judge, Stephen Clark, quickly followed with a permanent injunction. That sent the case back to Washington a third time, and Friday's ruling put it to rest.

The competing chaos arguments

Republicans and their allies argued that keeping the 2022 map is itself the disruptive option, since more than a million Missourians already voted in the August primary under the 2025 lines. Kehoe made that case directly after the ruling, posting on X that "Missouri will conduct its November general election under a different congressional map than its primary election," and that "voters deserved consistency and certainty, and not for the rules to be changed between elections," according to CNN.

Running a primary on one map and a general election on another is genuinely unusual, and voters in the 5th District now have different candidates on their ballot than they saw in August. But the Supreme Court's own reasoning pointed the other direction. Absentee and military ballots for the general election were already printed and mailed under the 2022 map before the 8th Circuit's Monday ruling, meaning the switch the GOP wanted would have hit voters mid-cast, not before it. The court's opinion repeatedly invoked the "Purcell principle," the doctrine from a 2006 case that warns federal courts against changing election rules close to voting, as CNN reported.

Von Glahn framed the outcome as a win against manipulation, telling reporters, "We are done with corrupt politicians trying to force their map into effect outside the process outlined in the Missouri constitution," per CNN.

What it means for the House

Missouri's delegation will remain split 6-2 in the GOP's favor rather than shifting to 7-1, as MS NOW noted. That single seat matters because Republicans hold only a narrow House majority nationally, and this was one piece of a broader mid-decade redistricting push that, per NPR, has already shifted roughly nine or 10 districts nationwide in the GOP's favor, including gains in Texas that the Supreme Court upheld even as it rejected Missouri's map and a Democrat-friendly plan in Virginia.

The unresolved piece: Missouri voters still get to decide the 2025 map's fate directly. It remains on the November ballot as a referendum question, meaning the map Republicans wanted for this cycle could still take effect for future elections if voters approve it, even though it's dead for 2026.