Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe called the Supreme Court’s latest block of a Republican-drawn congressional map disappointing, leaving November’s election under different lines than the primary.
The United States Supreme Court on Friday stopped an appeals court ruling that would have let Missouri use its 2025 Republican-favored House map, forcing the state back to the older 2022 boundaries for the November general election.
The Hill reported that Kehoe shared his reaction on X, saying the ruling means Missouri will run its general election under a different congressional map than the one used in the primary, a result he said voters should not have to accept.
“It is disappointing that today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court means Missouri will conduct its November general election under a different congressional map than its primary election,” Kehoe said.
“Voters deserved consistency and certainty, and not for the rules to be changed between elections,”
Kehoe added that the state will comply. The governor had championed the redistricting effort last year as Republicans moved to redraw the state’s eight House seats.
In an unsigned opinion with no noted dissents, the justices blocked the lower-court path back to the 2025 map. The high court wrote that a late-stage switch risked real disruption.
“At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos,”
The New York Post reported the Court also directed that lower courts “should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri,” locking in the older lines while absentee voting is already underway.
Justices pointed to ballots already being mailed and the risk of another midstream change so close to Election Day. That practical concern, not a final judgment on the merits of the 2025 lines, drove the order.
The fight has already stretched across state and federal courts, including a stretch when an Eighth Circuit order revived the GOP-drawn map after earlier high-court setbacks, only to land back before the justices again.
Republicans passed the 2025 map to create a 7-1 House advantage, up from six Republican seats under the 2022 boundaries. The new lines targeted the Kansas City-area district held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and were drawn to give the GOP a realistic shot at seven of Missouri’s eight seats.
The Washington Examiner noted the Supreme Court halt keeps the 2022 map’s 6-2 Republican edge in place for November and cuts off the extra seat Republicans sought, with the election less than five weeks away when the order landed.
Missouri had already used the newer map in its August primary. After that primary, the state Supreme Court ruled that a referendum challenging the map would go before voters in November, blocking the new boundaries from taking effect for the general election unless voters approved them.
Republicans then pressed the fight in federal court, arguing that forcing different maps for the primary and the general created constitutional problems. An appeals court moved to allow the 2025 map; the U.S. Supreme Court shut that down.
Just the News reported the high court rejected the Republican redistricting push in Missouri for the third time, overriding the appeals court’s attempt to revive the 2025 map that could have eliminated Cleaver’s district as a safe Democratic seat.
The 2025 plan sat inside a broader mid-decade redistricting push backed by President Trump and national Republicans, an effort to correct House maps where the raw numbers still favored a stronger GOP position. Missouri’s version passed last year and briefly governed the primary before the legal spiral took over.
That spiral left ordinary voters with the one outcome Kehoe named: inconsistency. Primary voters cast ballots under one set of districts. General-election voters will use another. The referendum on the new map remains on the November ballot even as the 2022 lines control the House races themselves.
Earlier rounds of the same dispute had already sent the case through Missouri’s redistricting chaos heading back to the Supreme Court on tight timelines, then through fresh lower-court orders that never stuck.
Fox News reported the Friday order also told the district court and the court of appeals they “should not order or otherwise require Missouri to use the 2025 map in the 2026 congressional election,” closing the immediate wrangling over which lines govern this cycle.
A federal appeals court move backing the GOP map had set up the latest showdown; the justices answered by freezing the 2022 map in place for November rather than risk another switch after ballots went out.
For the 2026 midterms, Missouri will elect its House members under the same 2022 districts used in prior cycles. Republicans keep a built-in 6-2 edge instead of the 7-1 map they passed and briefly used. Cleaver’s Kansas City-area seat stays under the older lines. The citizen referendum on the 2025 map still faces voters even though those lines will not control this fall’s congressional contests.
Kehoe’s statement framed the core failure in plain terms: rules changed between elections. The Court framed its own reason in equally plain terms, late timing and mailed ballots. Both can be true at once. A map Republicans lawfully advanced became a months-long legal maze, and the people who show up to vote inherit the mess.
The state will follow the order. The November election will proceed on the older map. And Missouri’s attempt to align its House districts with a stronger Republican opportunity waits on a referendum and another cycle’s worth of political reality.
When courts and ballot fights leave a state with two maps for one election year, voters pay the price in confusion while politicians and lawyers keep the gavel.