Latest decision appears to set the stage for the state to use its old electoral maps this year
The US supreme court again rejected a push backed by Donald Trump to overhaul Missouri’s congressional maps in an effort to hand Republicans an edge in November’s midterm elections.
Its latest ruling, after days of confusion, comes less than two months before the pivotal midterm elections in which control of the narrowly divided US House of Representatives could be determined by a handful of seats.
Following conflicting decisions that spanned four courts, Wednesday’s ruling appeared to set the stage for the state to use its old electoral maps this year. But it was not immediately clear how the state would proceed after using the newer, Republican-drawn maps to hold its primary elections in August.
At the behest of the president, Missouri’s Republican-dominated legislature redrew district lines last year to net one additional seat for Republicans in the US House of Representatives. The new maps carve up a district representing Kansas City, long held by Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat.
After Missouri’s governor, Mike Kehoe, signed new congressional district boundaries into law in September 2025, the legislation faced immediate challenges, including a push by People Not Politicians, a campaign group, which gathered more than 300,000 signatures to force a statewide referendum on whether to keep or repeal the new map. But Missouri’s secretary of state, Denny Hoskins, a Republican, sought to use the new map anyway.
The Missouri supreme court certified the referendum for the ballot on 3 September over Hoskins’s objections, ruling the new district lines would not take effect until 2027 – after the referendum vote – and that the 2025 redistricting did not comply with the law.
The state attorney general, Catherine Hanaway, also a Republican, immediately appealed this decision.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who oversees emergency hearings from the eighth circuit, refused to stay the Missouri supreme court ruling on Tuesday.
But federal district judge Stephen Clark made a ruling only minutes later, in a separate federal case, requiring Hoskins to use the new Republican-friendly map – compounding confusion over November’s elections. Hoskins then said he would follow Clark’s order, and a federal appeals court panel declined to block that order.
On Thursday morning, Kavanaugh again ordered the state to comply with the Missouri supreme court ruling, blocking the new maps.
