On September 21, 2026, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ordered Missouri to hold its November congressional elections under the map Republicans drew in 2025, the map that, as NBC News reports, the state adopted during a wave of mid-decade redistricting “at Trump's urging.” The unsigned opinion is blunt: “This Court holds that Missouri's current plan to use the 2022 map in the November 2026 general election violates the Constitution. Only use of the 2025 map complies with the Constitution and federal law.” The map “significantly reshapes a Kansas City-based district held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver,” the Associated Press reports, and “Republicans hope the map could help them win seven of the state's eight House seats.”
It is the latest turn in a month of whiplash. Missouri held its August primaries under the 2025 map. On September 3 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled it could not be used in November, because opponents had submitted petition signatures calling for a statewide referendum on it. Trump called that ruling “horrible, ridiculous, and unConstitutional” and wrote, “Missouri must be able to use the map that was in effect just a couple of months ago, in the Primary.” On September 8 Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined the state officials' emergency request to overturn the state court. That same day U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark ordered the 2025 map used anyway, in a suit brought by Republican Rep. Bob Onder and others, and on September 10 the full Supreme Court stayed Clark's order pending appeal, with no noted dissents. Earlier that day, CNN reported, “the Trump Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to side with the Missouri Republicans.” The September 10 stay offered no explanation, Politico noted.
The Eighth Circuit's reasoning is that a single election cannot change districts midstream: “Article I, Section 2's right to participate in the procedure of choosing a member of Congress requires continuity in the constituency throughout all stages of a single election.” The panel was Judge James Loken, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and two Trump appointees, David Stras and Justin Smith. AP notes that before his appointment in June, Smith “represented Trump as he unsuccessfully appealed a $5 million jury verdict in a lawsuit filed by the writer E. Jean Carroll.” Stras would have thrown out the appeal on other grounds, writing that the map's challengers “lack standing.” The opinion also warned the state's highest court: “The Court trusts that the Missouri Supreme Court will respect this Court's decision.”
The order does not take effect at once. The court directed that its injunction be stayed “until September 28, 2026, at 5 p.m. Central Daylight Time” to allow Supreme Court review, and wrote that if the justices have not acted by then, the secretary of state “and all others bound by this judgment must fully implement the 2025 map for the November 2026 general election.” Voting has already begun under the older map. Richard von Glahn of People Not Politicians, the group behind the referendum, said it would go to the Supreme Court: “Ballots have been printed, and Missourians have already voted. Thousands more will vote before this order seeks to take effect.” Roll Call calls it “a likely third Supreme Court fight.” For the national picture, see The Redistricting War Trump Started Has Moved 34.8 Million Americans Into Different House Districts, About One in Ten.
Update (September 23, 2026): People Not Politicians went to the Supreme Court at about 10:30 p.m. on September 22, the third time this fight has reached the justices in three weeks. The filing is docketed as People Not Politicians v. Onder, No. 26A388, and was submitted to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the circuit justice for the Eighth Circuit, with Abha Khanna of the Elias Law Group as counsel of record. What it asks for first is not a stay but a clarification: that the Court's September 10 order already “precludes enforcement of the replacement injunction—or any other lower court order granting the relief this Court has stayed.” A stay is the alternative.
The argument is that the appeals court relabeled an order the Supreme Court had already blocked. “This case is back before this Court for a familiar reason: a lower court has once again granted relief this Court foreclosed—this time by ordering the district court to issue a new injunction after this Court stayed the first,” the application opens, and later: “This Court's stays are not invitations for a lower court to repackage the same relief and try again.” The side-by-side it draws is hard to miss. The September 8 injunction barred the secretary of state from using “any congressional district map other than the HB 1 map for the November 3, 2026 general election.” The September 21 injunction bars him from using “any congressional district map other than the 2025 map for the November 3, 2026, general election.” The Eighth Circuit's own view, per the Missouri Independent, is that any confusion comes from the state court's late decision to switch maps.
The most concrete part of the record comes from the people who would have to carry the order out. The Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities, which represents all 116 local election jurisdictions in the state, told the Eighth Circuit: “At this point, it is practically impossible to revert to the HB 1 map due to the extensive time and cost required to reprint and distribute new ballots within statutory timelines. Any further change inflicts additional vertigo on local election authorities—and the millions of Missourians who rely on them.” Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon said “nearly half of our voters would end up changing districts, and so we would have to recreate ballot styles for the entire election,” and that no guidance exists for the situation. Johnson County's clerk told voters on Facebook to hold off on absentee voting if they could, because Missouri law does not let a county issue a second ballot once one has been cast. The Eighth Circuit panel acknowledged it did not know how many jurisdictions would have to change ballots, what it would cost, or how long it would take, and then wrote that “[p]resumably, local election authorities needed only a few days.”
Voting is already underway. Military and overseas ballots went out under the 2022 map the week of September 14, and some have been returned and cannot be recalled. Absentee voting opened on September 22, the day after the appeals court ruled. Kavanaugh asked for a response by 2 p.m. Eastern on September 23. Two amicus briefs were filed that morning, one from the Campaign Legal Center and the ACLU, and one submitted on behalf of Florida, Texas and 20 other states. The Eighth Circuit's injunction is stayed until 5 p.m. Central on September 28. As of this writing, the Court had not acted.
Later on September 23: the responses Kavanaugh asked for were filed by the 2 p.m. deadline, one from Onder and the other original plaintiffs and one from the State of Missouri and Secretary of State Denny Hoskins. Two more amicus briefs arrived the same day, one filed on behalf of 110 Missouri voters and one from two individual Missourians, alongside the morning's briefs from the Campaign Legal Center and the ACLU and from Florida, Texas and 20 other states. As of the evening the docket showed no order. The Eighth Circuit's injunction takes effect at 5 p.m. Central on September 28.
Update (September 28, 2026): the Supreme Court settled it on September 25. In an unsigned opinion in People Not Politicians v. Onder, with no noted dissents, it stayed the Eighth Circuit's order and the injunctions that followed from it, and told the lower courts not to order the 2025 map for this election: “In short, as a matter of state law, the 2022 map—not the 2025 map—must be used in the 2026 congressional election.” The justices were pointed about the repetition: “Given this Court's two prior orders in this litigation, our conclusion that this was error should come as no surprise.” On timing: “The election is not merely upcoming; it has already started,” and, “At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos.” The Court said “The Eighth Circuit's application of Purcell was incorrect,” and put much of the blame on Missouri's secretary of state, who had been told by the state supreme court that the new map would not take effect until voters approved it: “The Secretary nonetheless chose to proceed with the 2025 map for the primary.” A footnote rejected Judge Stras's objection, finding that “at least one of the applicants has standing on appeal.”
Missouri therefore votes in November under the 2022 map, the districts used in 2022 and 2024. The AP reported that the fight left more than a million potential voters, nearly 1 in 4 statewide, shifted from one district to another between the primary and the general election, and that at least 16 lawsuits have been filed over the redistricting. On September 10, the AP also reported, the Missouri Supreme Court had held Secretary of State Denny Hoskins temporarily in contempt for telling local election authorities to use the new map. Gov. Mike Kehoe: “Nevertheless, Missouri will follow the Court's order.” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, whose Kansas City seat the map targeted: “I think my reelection prospects shot up significantly.” His Republican opponent, state Sen. Rick Brattin, called the switch “the most unprecedented form of voter disenfranchisement in American history.”
Trump responded on Truth Social on Sunday morning, September 27: “The Supreme Court of the United States will just not let Missouri have an Election Victory. They continuously, three times now, overrule Judges who came to the correct decisions.” He added, “I won Missouri BIG, all three times, and I couldn't be more proud of doing so.”