Playing for Keeps: Missouri State House Approves New District Map

Honestly, it's about time Republicans started playing hardball.

On Tuesday, Missouri's state House of Representatives passed a new congressional district map, eliminating one safe Democratic seat by dividing Kansas City among three heavily Republican districts.

The Missouri House of Representatives on Tuesday approved plans to redraw state congressional districts as part of President Trump’s push to boost the Republican majority in Congress.
The new state congressional map was approved in a 90 to 65 vote, with a handful of GOP lawmakers voting against it.
The so-called “Missouri First Map” would split Kansas City into three GOP-leaning congressional districts and could help Republicans flip Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s (D-Mo.) seat in the House in the 2026 midterm elections.

Here's the best part: A look at the new map reveals no torturous, winding, snakelike districts you see in heavily Democratic states, like Illinois, or Maryland. Look in particular at Illinois' districts 13 and 17, or Maryland's districts 3, 4, and 5. Compare them to Missouri's new map:

Good work, Missouri. pic.twitter.com/gloSusWaEN
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) September 10, 2025

Missouri's effort is, by comparison, pretty tame. Bear in mind that eliminating a Democratic seat isn't terribly difficult in a state like Missouri, which President Trump won in the 2024 election by 18 points. The urban areas, St. Louis and Kansas City, are (as is so often the case) blue dots in a sea of red, but neither of those cities is as overwhelming as Chicago. Missouri will, if this map holds, go from two safe Democratic seats to one, and in the coming midterms, every seat is likely to count.

President Trump was quick to laud the effort:

Trump congratulated Missouri’s “incredible Republican State Legislators” for “overwhelmingly” supporting the “much fairer, and improved, Congressional Map,” in a Truth Social post.
“It was my Great Honor to win Missouri six times, including Primaries, in 2016, 2020, and 2024 (Getting the Highest Number of Votes for any Office in the History of the State!), and this new Map will give the wonderful people of Missouri the opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 Midterm Elections,” the president wrote.

Turnabout is indeed fair play. Now, California is attempting a similar tactic, but its process is more complicated, as my friend and colleague Bob Hoge has pointed out in a couple of recent pieces:

Kids, What Kids? CA Teachers Union Pours Millions Into Gavin Newsom's Radical Redistricting Effort

Of course, Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), whose seat is being yanked out from under him, isn't happy.

“This attempt to gerrymander Missouri will not simply change district lines, it will silence voices. It will deny representation. It will tell the people of Missouri that their lawmakers no longer wish to earn their vote, that elections are predetermined by the power brokers in Washington, and that politicians – not the people – will decide the outcome,” the Democratic congressman said in a statement.

No. It won't silence voices. Not one voice will be silenced. Every person in the redrawn districts will be able to vote, just as before. Every person in the redrawn districts still has the right to petition their government for the redress of grievances. They still have the right to express their discontent with the new maps, for that matter, so long as they do so peacefully.

But the drawing of Congressional districts along racial lines, as in Illinois, as in Maryland, as in so many places, has to end. Missouri's new map is not torturously gerrymandered, but it does wipe a Democrat seat out; that much is deliberate, and yes, the Constitution leaves this process to states. This new map doesn't divide along racial lines, but rather party lines. Whether Emanuel Cleaver likes it or not, Missouri is a heavily Republican state - and the Republicans are done playing patty-cake.

Frankly, it's about time.

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.

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