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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked Missouri from using a gerrymandered congressional map in the Nov. 3 election, allowing the state to use a map lawmakers passed in 2022 and likely drawing to a close a messy legal battle.
The nation’s highest court blocked two lower court rulings in favor of the Republican-backed map and ordered those courts to not require use of the map in the election. The ruling, which came from the full court, did not include any noted dissents.
The ruling marked the third time the Supreme Court has ruled against the map and likely signaled the death knell for a Republican push to use its boundaries in the Nov. 3 election. Lawmakers redrew the map last year under pressure from President Donald Trump, splitting up Kansas City in the hopes of ousting Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
“At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos,” the order said.
Missouri’s new map kicked off one of the most chaotic election sagas in the country amid a nationwide mid-decade redistricting blitz.
Chuck Hatfield, an attorney who fought against use of the map in court, touted the ruling on Friday, saying that it ensured the state would use the 2022 map in the election.
“The judicial branch did its job,” Hatfield said. “It sorted through the complex web of legal issues to arrive at the right result. This is how government is supposed to work, with the three branches of government providing checks and balances to protect the rights of the people.”
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican who signed the gerrymandered map into law, said he was disappointed by the decision. Kehoe pointed to the fact that Missouri will hold its primary and general elections under different maps.
“Voters deserved consistency and certainty, and not for the rules to be changed between elections,” Kehoe said. “Nevertheless, Missouri will follow the Court’s order.”
Weeks after convening the state’s top Republican lawmakers for a private meeting, Kehoe in August called a special session to redraw the map. Lawmakers passed the map in September 2025, hoping to secure for Republicans seven of the state’s eight districts.
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Opponents quickly responded, launching a campaign to ask voters to reject the map in a statewide referendum vote. That campaign, called People Not Politicians, was also designed to freeze the map until the Nov. 3 vote.
But roughly eight months after the campaign turned in more than 300,000 signatures to force that vote, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected the measure from the ballot. Missouri held its primary elections using the 2025 gerrymandered map.
The Missouri Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision earlier this month, found that Hoskins was wrong to reject the referendum. That ruling placed the referendum on the ballot and blocked the state from using the gerrymandered map in the Nov. 3 election.
A flurry of contradictory rulings followed. Federal judges in St. Louis ruled in favor of the 2025 map, while the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against it twice. The chaos had upended the state’s upcoming election, sparking uncertainty among voters and election authorities about which map should be used.
The state Supreme Court also found Hoskins in contempt after he ordered local election officials to use the new map. The court acknowledged, however, that he wiped away that charge when he reversed course.
The nation’s highest court, in its ruling on Friday, emphasized that Hoskins was aware that the map would not take effect unless voters approved it in the referendum vote.
“The Missouri Secretary of State was well aware that conducting the August primary election with the 2025 map carried significant risks,” the ruling said. “The Secretary nonetheless chose to proceed with the 2025 map for the primary.”
Amid the turmoil, voting has already started. Local election authorities pressed forward with absentee and overseas voting under the congressional map lawmakers passed in 2022.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
This story was originally published September 25, 2026 at 3:20 PM with the headline “U.S. Supreme Court again blocks Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map.”
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