Supreme Court decision blocking a Republican-backed congressional map in Missouri has narrowed one of the GOP’s clearest opportunities to pick up an additional seat in the House, undermining their battle for control of Congress. The court’s rejection of the Republican-backed map on Thursday leaves little visible pathway for it to be used in November, making it more likely that the state will use the 2022 map with the congressional districts passed after the last census, as ordered by the Missouri Supreme Court. Missouri was one of the clearest opportunities for Republicans in November to gain an additional seat in the House, where they hold a razor-thin majority.
But the Supreme Court’s rejection represents a clear roadblock in this direction, marking one of the biggest setbacks yet to Republicans’ midterm redistricting push. The court’s decision deals a particular blow to President Donald Trump, who has championed mid-cycle redistricting efforts in Republican-led states as a way of protecting the party’s fragile House majority. The strategy has taken on greater urgency as the president has faced plunging approval ratings since the start of the war in Iran and voter anxiety over persistent cost-of-living pressures.
Newsweek contacted the White House for comment by email on Friday morning and is awaiting a response. The new congressional map drawn by Missouri Republicans would have made the Kansas City-area district held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver more competitive for GOP candidates, creating one additional Republican-leaning congressional seat. Republicans currently have a six to two advantage over Democrats, but the new map would have given them seven seats.
Under the 2022 map passed after the last census, the 5th Congressional District encompasses the Kansas City area only. The revised map backed by Trump would dramatically alter the district’s makeup, removing portions of its current footprint and stretching it into Republican-leaning rural areas. AP estimated that about 59 percent of the district’s voters would be newcomers under the proposed boundaries.
While being used in the August primary, the use of the new Trump-backed map in the November midterms was blocked by the Missouri Supreme Court, which said it could not take effect without voters first approving it via referendum. The issue escalated to the Supreme Court, which has declined to restore the GOP-backed map for November, leaving the lower-court ruling in place while litigation continues. This week’s decision by the court leaves Missouri voters facing an unlikely situation: the November general election in the state could run with different U.S.
House districts than those used in the August primary. This change could switch the candidate choices for more than a million Missouri potential voters, or nearly 1 in 4, according to an estimate. In isolation, losing the chance of winning a single additional congressional seat might not seem very significant.
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