Missourians on Tuesday rejected a congressional map approved at the behest of President Donald Trump.
The map, aimed at ousting Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, was up for a referendum through Proposition A. The plan was rejected 62% to 38%, according to the Associated Press. That means the congressional lines passed during the 2025 legislative session will not go into effect for the 2028 election.
Proposition A’s failure marks a somewhat anticlimactic ending for a map that dominated the Missouri political world for more than a year.
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Trump pressured a slew of Republican states to redraw their congressional lines before the 2026 midterm elections, a move explicitly aimed at preventing the GOP from losing control of the U.S. House. Missouri was the second state, after Texas, to follow Trump’s directive, as the legislature passed a map that divided Kansas City into three districts and overhauled districts in the St. Louis area.
But redistricting opponents gathered enough signatures to put the map up for a referendum. After a legal process that lasted more than a year, both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Missouri had to use a 2022 map with a generally safe seat for Cleaver for the November election. The 2025 map was used for the August 2026 primary.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s September decision, Republicans effectively gave up trying to salvage the map, while the “no” side raised millions of dollars and ran a well-organized opposition campaign.
Several GOP political figures have pointed out that a Missouri Supreme Court decision issued earlier this year opened the door for lawmakers to redraw the congressional map again in the future. But if Republicans draw another congressional map in 2027 or 2028, redistricting opponents could again gather signatures to put the issue up to a vote.
