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On Sunday, Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed into law a legislative redrawing of the state’s congressional districts, a gerrymander that will likely result in one fewer Democratic representative in the state’s delegation in the next midterm elections, despite no huge ideological shift among voters.
The move is part of a broader national scheme, planned by President Donald Trump’s political team in coordination with state governors and legislatures, to mitigate potential seat losses in the 2026 midterms. Traditionally speaking, the party of an incumbent president loses seats in the midterms, but 2026 is still expected to be a close race, with only a handful of elections likely being the deciding factor over which party will be in control.
By redrawing district maps now (instead of after the next census), Trump and Republicans are hoping they can stave off enough losses to keep the House of Representatives in their control, despite voters likely wanting a change in political leadership.
Several states run by Trump-aligned Republicans may involve themselves in the scheme by next year’s midterms. Texas has already passed new maps, leading to the expectation that Democrats may lose five more seats than they would have with the original district lines in place. With Missouri’s new maps, it’s expected that one Democratic seat in the state will also flip to Republican control after next year.
Currently, two of the eight congressional districts in Missouri are held by Democrats — despite the fact that nearly two in five voters picked Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris for president in 2024. The new maps will likely result in only one of those eight seats being occupied by a Democrat, with the remaining seven going to Republicans.
In signing the new maps into law, Kehoe derided other Democratic-controlled states “like New York, California and Illinois,” while also thanking Trump’s political team for assisting in the process of redrawing maps — two points that clearly indicate this was for partisan gain and not in the interest of Missouri voters.
“I was proud to officially sign the Missouri First Map into law today ahead of the 2026 midterm election,” Kehoe said in his Sunday press release.
Last week, Kehoe acknowledged that the Republicans’ newly drawn maps would be challenged — indeed, at least three lawsuits have already been filed against them.
“We’ll let the courts decide” on whether the maps will be upheld, he said at the time, adding that he “wouldn’t have went into this without feeling like we had good advice on that.”
The NAACP is among the groups suing the state over the maps, alleging the governor doesn’t have the powers in the Missouri constitution to call a special session on redistricting. Other lawsuits, brought forward by voters in two different counties in the state, also claim the maps are illegal because the state constitution doesn’t explicitly grant lawmakers the right to redraw maps except for after the federally mandated decennial census occurs.
One of those lawsuits also notes that the process of redrawing the maps — which only took 10 days — violated laws on transparency, and that the new districts are not “as compact as may be,” which is also a requirement of the state constitution.
“Politics and partisan advantage are not permissible justifications for deviating from the compactness requirement,” the lawsuit states.
Polling shows that voters across the country largely disapprove of the idea of mid-census gerrymandering. Indeed, a Common Cause poll published early in September found that there was bipartisan opposition to such actions, with 76 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 57 percent of Republicans saying they disagreed, in principle, with mid-census redistricting.
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