Missouri may not use the redrawn congressional map President Donald Trump has championed, the U.S. Supreme Court decided on Thursday, September 10, 2026, granting an emergency stay that hands the November general election to the state’s 2022 districts — this despite the fact that Missouri’s primary was already run on the new lines.
No justice publicly dissented. The unsigned order was brief and explained nothing, a routine feature of the court’s handling of emergency applications. In full, it said: “The application for stay presented to Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh and by him referred to the Court is granted.”
What the Stay Does Not Do
This was a procedural move. The justices issued no opinion, reached no decision on the merits and made no finding that the map is unconstitutional. Stephen Clark, chief judge of the federal district court covering eastern Missouri, had issued a ruling, and what the justices did was pause it for the duration of the litigation. That freeze leaves the Missouri Supreme Court’s order as the only governing court order, so the map in force for the fall is the one drawn in 2022. The blocking of the new districts has now happened for the second time.
Two Courts, Two Conflicting Orders
The redrawn districts, known as HB 1, won approval from Missouri Republicans in 2025, and the plan became law that September when Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed it. A unanimous Missouri Supreme Court held on September 3 that the new lines had never come into legal force, directing that the earlier districts govern unless voters sign off on the switch. Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, had argued that skipping the new map would produce confusion, expense and practical difficulties; the court found that argument unpersuasive.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway responded with an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Emergency appeals from Missouri go to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and on Tuesday, September 8, he refused to disturb the state court’s ruling. He denied Hoskins’ request on his own rather than sending it to his eight colleagues.
Clark stepped in within an hour of that decision becoming public, issuing a temporary restraining order that told the state to use the 2025 map instead. Republican Rep. Robert Onder, whose seat covers Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District, had brought the federal case on September 4 along with another congressional candidate and two individual voters. In Clark’s view, the federal challengers faced irreparable harm without his order, because nominees picked without their input would confront a great many Missouri voters at the ballot box in November.
Two intervenors in the federal suit — the group People Not Politicians and Referendum organizer Richard von Glahn — tried to put Clark’s order on hold, taking the fight to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the night of September 8. That court refused on Wednesday, September 9, and the organizers went to the justices that afternoon with an emergency stay application docketed as People Not Politicians v. Onder. Answers from Hoskins and the remaining plaintiffs were due by 10 a.m. EDT on September 10, Kavanaugh ordered. Von Glahn’s position was that state law alone underpinned the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court with no power to weigh in at all.
A Primary and a General on Different Maps
Voters cast primary ballots on August 4 under the new districts, and the November general election will now run on the 2022 map. The deadline to send ballots to military and overseas voters was nine days away when the order came down. Which districts apply in the fall remains the unresolved question.
Only the Missouri Supreme Court’s order is in effect now, Hoskins said in a statement. “In accordance with that order, my Office is directing local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map,” he said. The Missouri Supreme Court had ordered him to appear at a contempt hearing on Thursday, September 10, after he told local election officials to use the new districts, and a federal judge refused to stop that hearing from going forward before the U.S. Supreme Court acted.
Reaction and the November Ballot
A statement from Ally Triolo, the Republican National Committee’s election integrity communications director, credited repeated legal victories with defending what she called Missouri’s fair and lawful map, and faulted the 11th-hour ruling for pulling the rug out from under voters who had already cast primary ballots. “Changing the rules mid-election is reckless and wrong,” she said. Switching districts before the general election, Republican state officials have argued, would violate voters’ federal rights.
Under the redrawn lines, the Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District held by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, disappears — parts of the seat move into neighboring districts, while the rest of it reaches out into territory that leans heavily Republican. Republicans, as the map was drawn, stood a strong chance of taking seven of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats, an improvement on the six-to-two advantage they hold now. In the U.S. House, Republicans hold a 219-214 majority, which counts one independent who caucuses with them.
Seeking a statewide referendum, opponents of the map turned in more than 300,000 petition signatures in December 2025. Hoskins waited until August 4, the last day available to him, to reject the petition, and von Glahn filed suit in state court that same day. The measure reached the ballot by order of the Missouri Supreme Court and appears as Proposition A, a veto referendum, on November 3; voters will decide whether future elections can be run on the redrawn districts.
Trump backed the redrawn map and previously called the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling “ridiculous.” Thursday’s order, which he has not publicly responded to, keeps Clark’s ruling on hold while the underlying litigation moves forward.
