GOP nets 1 more House seat as Missouri passes gerrymandered map

The Missouri Senate passed a new congressional map on Friday — a move that likely gives Republicans control of an additional House seat after next year’s midterms.

Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe pushed for the map’s passage and it is expected to be signed into law quickly.

Missouri is now the second red state to increase the number of GOP-leaning seats in its congressional map through a mid-decade redraw — something that had once been unusual but has now become key to President Donald Trump's midterm strategy to keep control of the House of Representatives. Trump urged GOP state senators during their caucus meeting this week to pass it, the Missouri Independent reported.

The new composition of seats carves up Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City seat and creates a safe Republican district. It also redraws the state’s 2nd Congressional District, which GOP Rep. Ann Wagner won by nearly 8 percentage points in 2024, to more heavily favor the party.

Typically, congressional maps are redrawn once per decade, after the Census. But with the House of Representatives so closely divided, there is opportunity to use the redistricting process to shore up an advantage. Republicans, fearing they will lose their slim majority in next year's midterms, see the process as one way to keep its edge.

Texas redrew its own congressional map in August to create five new GOP-leaning seats there — and will be followed by Ohio, which is legally required to redraw in 2025. The White House has also put pressure on Indiana to take up redistricting this year.

Democrats, meanwhile, have only begun a redistricting effort in one state, California, but that process has to first be approved by the state's voters.

In Missouri, Cleaver and other Democrats have vowed to fight the new map in court, though judges have been hesitant to block partisan gerrymandering in the past. Activists in the state have debated putting forth a ballot measure to block the new map, but the Legislature has also debated unwinding the state’s referendum process for state constitutional amendments.

"This is nothing less than an unconstitutional power grab — a blatant attempt to rig the 2026 elections before a single vote is cast," said Elsa Rainey, spokesperson for People NOT Politicians, a group backing a ballot measure to overturn the new map. "It violates Missouri law, slices apart communities, and strikes at the core of our democratic system."