In September 2025 Missouri's Republican legislature, called into special session by Governor Mike Kehoe at President Trump's urging, passed a new congressional map with one big change: it dismantles the 5th district, Kansas City's seat, held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver since 2005. The city is split three ways, each piece attached to enough Republican countryside to outvote it, the textbook crack. Missouri sends six Republicans and two Democrats to the House; the map is built to make that seven and one.

The Kansas City area under the 2022 map, shaded by the 2020 presidential vote: the 5th holds the city and votes blue; the 4th and 6th take the countryside.
Before: the map in force since 2022, shaded by the 2020 vote. The 5th holds the city and votes blue, while the 4th and 6th take the countryside.

The new lines cut the city into three and run each piece out into the countryside until it is outvoted there. No district in the Kansas City area leans Democratic any more.

The Kansas City area under the 2025 map: the city split three ways, each piece stretched into red countryside so no district leans blue.
After: the 2025 map. Kansas City is split three ways, and each piece is stretched into enough red countryside that no district leans blue.

The referendum

Missouri lets voters veto a new law by petition. The campaign People Not Politicians submitted more than 305,000 signatures in December 2025, enough to put the map to a vote. The state fought the referendum in court. On 3 September 2026 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled it valid and ordered the Secretary of State to run the November election on the previous map, drawn in 2022, until voters have spoken. Republican legislators then tried the federal courts: a district judge briefly ordered the new map used, Justice Kavanaugh declined to pause the state ruling on 8 September, and the Eighth Circuit refused a stay the next day. The 2022 map is the one in use; a last appeal to the Supreme Court is pending, with legal experts giving it little chance.

What is on the ballot

Proposition A, on 3 November 2026. A yes vote keeps the new Republican map and Kansas City stays split; a no vote keeps the 2022 map and the 5th district survives. An August poll from Saint Louis University and YouGov found 35% yes, 32% no and 33% undecided: the one redistricting fight of this cycle that voters themselves will settle, on the same day they elect the House.

Why it matters

One seat, but a rare mechanism: a partisan map stopped not by a court but by a petition. Whichever way the vote goes, it is a test of whether voters will use the veto against their own legislature's lines.

Try it yourself

Keep Kansas City in one district, then crack it into the countryside, and watch the seat appear and disappear.

Kansas City, MO (2020)
Play as RepublicansPlay as Democrats

Sources

  • Missouri Independent: Missouri Supreme Court blocks gerrymandered congressional map, orders referendum vote (3 Sep 2026)
  • Ballotpedia News: Missouri voters to decide congressional map referendum in November after court ruling (9 Sep 2026)
  • St. Louis Public Radio: Missouri Supreme Court puts referendum to overturn new congressional map on ballot (3 Sep 2026)
  • Missouri Independent: Missouri GOP still see path for gerrymandered congressional map. Legal experts see little hope. (14 Sep 2026)
  • ABC17: 8th Circuit decision in Missouri congressional map case appealed to U.S. Supreme Court (9 Sep 2026)
  • Ballotpedia: Missouri Congressional Map Referendum (2026) (2026)