A look at the U.S. Supreme Court on June 25, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
Missouri on Friday appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the use of new congressional districts favored by President Donald Trump in the upcoming midterm elections.
The appeal comes after the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the new map and ordered a statewide vote in November to keep or reject it.
This is part of the national redistricting battle that President Trump launched last year. Missouri’s new congressional boundaries were drawn to allow Republicans to pick up additional seats and maintain their slim House majority in November’s midterm elections.
The Missouri Supreme Court weighed in after redistricting opponents submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures calling for the maps to be put on the ballot. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected the petition on the day of the primary, arguing that the Missouri Constitution does not allow petitions for legislative redistricting. He successfully defended his decision in lower courts, but lost in the state Supreme Court on Thursday.
The court said the referendum petition effectively put a halt to new districts retroactive to December of last year, pending voter approval. The new districts were used in the August primary, but the Missouri Supreme Court said previous districts established after the 2020 census must be used in the general election.
Missouri Attorney General Katherine Hannaway said no court had previously overturned a congressional map after a primary election but before a general election.
“No court in the history of the United States has granted such extraordinary relief, resulting in unprecedented chaos for Missouri,” his office wrote in the appeal. She asked the Supreme Court to immediately halt the state court’s decision.
State law provides a Tuesday deadline to make changes to November’s ballots. The Supreme Court has given critics of the new map to respond to their appeal by Monday.
Missouri currently has six Republicans and two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new map redraws the Kansas City-based district held by longtime Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver.
Congressional districts are typically redrawn at the beginning of every 10 years based on new census data. But Mr. Trump’s aim to gain an advantage in the midterm elections sparked an unprecedented redistricting battle that lasted mid-decade and spread to more than a dozen states, led by Democrats and Republicans.
