Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe has signed a new US House map into law as part of President Donald Trump's plan to try to hold on to a narrow Republican majority in next year's congressional election.
Kehoe's signature on Sunday puts the revised districts into state law with a goal of helping Republicans win one additional seat.
But it may not be the final action. Opponents are pursuing a referendum petition that, if successful, would force a statewide vote on the new map. They have also brought several lawsuits against it.
"I was proud to officially sign the Missouri First Map into law today ahead of the 2026 midterm election," Kehoe said in a statement.
"Missourians are more alike than we are different, and our values, across both sides of the aisle, are closer to each other than those of the congressional representation of states like New York, California and Illinois."
Grinding gerrymandering
US House districts were redrawn across the country after the 2020 census to account for population changes. But Missouri is the third state this year to try to redraw its districts for partisan advantage, a process known as gerrymandering.
Republican lawmakers in Texas passed a new US House map last month aimed at helping their party win five additional seats. Democratic lawmakers in California countered with their own redistricting plan aimed at winning five more seats, though it still needs voter approval. Other states are also considering redistricting.
Each seat could be critical, because Democrats need to gain just three seats to win control of the House, which would allow them to obstruct Trump's agenda and launch investigations into him. Trump is trying to stave off a historic trend in which the president's party typically loses seats in midterm elections.
Republicans currently hold six of Missouri's eight US House seats. The new map targets a seat held by Democratic US Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by shaving off portions of his Kansas City district and stretching the rest of it into Republican-heavy rural areas.
It reduces the number of Black and minority residents in Cleaver's district, which he has represented for two decades after serving as Kansas City's first Black mayor.
