US Supreme Court Rejects Trump-Backed Map, Missouri to Use 2022 Districts

Missouri is set to hold its November midterm elections using congressional districts drawn after the last census, after the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected — for the second time — a map backed by President Donald Trump that Republicans had hoped would deliver an additional House seat.

The brief order, issued without any publicly recorded dissent, did not set out the court's legal reasoning, as is typical in emergency appeals. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Citing the ruling, Missouri's chief election official directed local authorities to use the U.S. House districts passed in 2022, in line with an order from the state's highest court. The Trump administration had pressed the courts to allow the president's preferred map, which was drawn at his request last year.

The decision closes a legal battle that has run for nearly a year and sown confusion among voters. It also means Missouri could run its general election under different U.S. House boundaries than those used in the August primary — an unusually rare situation. According to an estimate, more than a million potential voters, or nearly one in four statewide, could find themselves shifted into new districts and facing candidates they did not vote for in the primary.

Earlier on Thursday, Missouri's top court held a hearing on whether to hold Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in contempt for failing to follow its orders to use the post-census districts. Hoskins had instead instructed local election authorities to adopt the new Trump-backed map, citing a competing order issued by a federal judge on Tuesday that barred him from using anything other than the new districts.