President Donald Trump wants Missouri to join in on a mid-decade redistricting extravaganza ahead of the midterm elections, according to a Missouri GOP congressman.
But if Missouri Republicans do target Missouri’s Kansas City-based 5th District at the behest of Trump, they’d not only be abandoning their own impassioned arguments from just a couple of years ago – but possibly plunging the state into judicial limbo.
At the beginning of every decade, states redraw congressional districts based on population data released from the U.S. Census Bureau. States do sometimes redraw maps either at the behest of courts or because the political party in charge wants advantages ahead of congressional elections.
With the GOP’s grip on Congress looking dicey going into the 2026 midterm elections, Trump is publicly urging Texas to overhaul its congressional map so that Republicans can win an additional five seats. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said recently that if Texas goes through with that plan, he’ll set in motion a bid to make his state’s map even more Democratic.
Congressman Eric Burlison told St. Louis Public Radio on Thursday that he heard directly from the White House that the president wants the GOP-controlled Missouri legislature to revamp its map to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City to win re-election.
“I literally just got off the phone with the White House – and they do want that,” said Burlison, R-Greene County. “And this is the first that I've heard it directly from them, because before that I heard it through rumors – through other people.”
The White House didn’t return a message from St. Louis Public Radio inquiring about the matter. But a number of high-level Republican operatives have confirmed reports from Punchbowl News and Puck that the White House is angling for Missouri to redraw its map.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Mike Kehoe didn’t return several messages for comment about whether the Republican would call a redistricting special session, which likely would be held in the fall. House Speaker Jon Patterson and Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin both told St. Louis Public Radio they’ve received no communication from anyone about wanting a redistricting special session.
Reigniting a fight
The surprise reemergence of Missouri redistricting comes as U.S. House Republicans hold a tenuous majority. Some observers, including Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, said the fact that national Republicans want to squeeze an extra seat out of Missouri shows how pessimistic they are about retaining the majority during the 2026 midterm elections.
The bloodbath that happened in ‘18, that's what they're worried about,” said Beck, D-St. Louis County. “It's like that, but on steroids. They're attacking people, and they're taking away health care from people. And it’s not going to work. It's going to work against them.”
Burlison said the move to target Cleaver isn’t a sign of Republican panic.
“It’s such a thin majority. It's so thin that every seat is going to count,” Burlison said. “And that was the argument that was made when we were going through redistricting.”
What Burlison was referring to was how Republicans quarreled publicly in 2022 about whether to go after Cleaver's seat – or to have six relatively safe Republican seats and two safe Democratic seats. The legislature ultimately went with the so-called 6-2 map, primarily because of fears that splitting Kansas City up could put the 4th and 6th districts in play.
“What it could do is in a competitive election year, like maybe the midterm elections which usually don't go well for the president's party, is make those districts competitive where now the Republican Party has to invest time and resources into those districts, “ said University of Missouri-St. Louis political science professor Anita Manion. “And so, it could open up the potential for Democrats to pick up some seats, although I won't say that that's likely.”
Many prominent Republicans, including some who are currently in GOP leadership in the General Assembly, passionately argued against a 7-1 map. They contended it made sense to have Kansas City in a geographically compact area, as opposed to having it diced up into largely rural-dominated districts.
But Burlison, who generally stayed out of the redistricting fights in 2022 but supported a 7-1 map, said the rejection of a 7-1 map had more to do with disdain for some of that plan’s proponents – then-Sens. Bill Eigel and Bob Onder. He contends the dynamics will change now that Trump is making the ask.
“They were risk averse. And then, I also think just the fact that you had the number one advocates for 7-1 were people that they couldn't stand like Bill Eigel,” Burlison said. “The Missouri Senate had Bill Eigel derangement syndrome in a lot of ways.”
Beck said it speaks volumes that Republicans in Missouri are willing to pursue mid-decade redistricting at the behest of Trump – especially since he’s facing heat over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
“It's a blatant power grab by an administration that's desperate to deflect from their cover-up on the Epstein files,” Beck said.
Could it be done?
Contrary to some assumptions, Republicans do have the ability to transform Cleaver’s district into a solid Republican seat. Unlike the 1st Congressional District, it’s not protected under the Voting Rights Act because it doesn’t have a majority minority population.
And since the redrawing would likely be done in a special session this year, Democrats would have less leverage to stop it from going to Kehoe’s desk. That’s because Democratic filibusters are more effective during regular sessions, when the party can hold up other major items to block legislation from passing.
But it’s an open question whether any map would stand up to judicial scrutiny.
Jim Layton is a former Missouri solicitor general who defended the state’s congressional maps in court back in the 2010s. He said it would be a near certainty that someone would sue if the legislature tried to change the map.
“The constitution requires that it be done after the decennial census, and it doesn't address whether it can be done at another time,” Layton said. “I would expect that someone would challenge the map, saying that under our constitution, there's only one chance after each census to create a new map.”
Layton also said a new map would face another problem: Because the most recent Census data comes from 2020, it’s highly possible that someone could say the map doesn’t conform to constitutional guidelines that districts need to be “nearly equal in population as may be.”
“We don't have real census numbers other than from the decennial census every 10 years. Anything else is an estimate,” Layton said. “But we know from those estimates that things have changed. That the numbers that we had from 2020 are not the numbers that we would have today. So there certainly could be an opportunity for someone to challenge any new districts by saying that, as of today, those districts are not equal.”
But Washington University law professor Travis Crum said that similar arguments against a Texas map that was redrawn in the 2000s failed in court. He also said that if states weren’t allowed to change their maps in the middle of the decade, it could create logistical problems.
“It's pretty common for state legislative maps and congressional maps to be invalidated on some type of grounds a few years into the redistricting cycle, – they violate section two of the Voting Rights Act or something like that,” Crum said. “And in those circumstances, you often have general assemblies redrawing state maps in years ending in three or four. And if the claim is that you can't rely on census data that's now, at that point, three or four years old ... you'd be in a bind, right?”
The bigger issue for Republicans in the General Assembly could be less a legal problem and more a practical one.
If Republicans do successfully target Cleaver, it could incentivize Democrats, especially in the Senate, to block as many GOP-led initiatives as possible during the 2026 session. Democrats are already planning for some sort of retribution after Republicans forced votes on measures taking aim at voter-approved abortion rights and paid leave initiatives.
Beck said he already has tenuous relationships with some GOP senators, including those in leadership.
“I hope that changes at some point, but there's going to have to be some changes made to make that happen,” Beck said.
