Missouri will run its November general election on congressional districts drawn in 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court granted an emergency stay on Thursday, September 10, 2026, blocking the redrawn map backed by President Donald Trump — even though the state’s primary had already been conducted on the new lines.
The justices explained nothing, issuing instead a brief, unsigned order of the sort the court commonly produces on emergency applications. “The application for stay presented to Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh and by him referred to the Court is granted,” it read. No justice publicly dissented.
What the Stay Does Not Do
Nothing in the action reached the merits. The U.S. Supreme Court did not declare the map unconstitutional and issued no opinion; the move was procedural. Stephen Clark, who serves as chief judge of the federal district court covering eastern Missouri, had issued a ruling that the justices instead put on pause while the litigation continues. The Missouri Supreme Court’s order now stands as the only governing court order with Clark’s order frozen, and the 2022 congressional map applies. That marks the second time the map has been blocked.
Two Courts, Two Conflicting Orders
The redrawn districts, known as HB 1, won approval from Missouri Republicans in 2025, and the plan became law in September 2025 with a signature from Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe. A unanimous Missouri Supreme Court ruled on September 3 that the new lines had no legal force and that elections should proceed on the earlier map unless the change wins voter approval. 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 took an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh handles emergency appeals from Missouri, and on Tuesday, September 8, he left the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling undisturbed. He denied Hoskins’ request on his own rather than sending it to his eight colleagues.
Clark moved within an hour of that decision becoming public, issuing a temporary restraining order that instructed 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; another congressional candidate and two individual voters joined him. Clark found the federal challengers faced irreparable harm without his order, reasoning that many Missouri voters would otherwise have to choose in November among nominees they had no role in selecting.
Both intervenors in the federal suit, Referendum organizer Richard von Glahn and the group People Not Politicians, asked the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the night of September 8 to put Clark’s order on hold. 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. Kavanaugh gave Hoskins and the remaining plaintiffs until 10 a.m. EDT on September 10 to respond. The federal justices had no authority to intervene whatsoever, von Glahn contended, because state law alone supplied the basis for the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling.
A Primary and a General on Different Maps
The new districts governed the primary ballots voters cast August 4, while the 2022 map will now be used for the November general election. Nine days remained before the deadline to send ballots to military and overseas voters when the order came down. The unresolved question is which districts apply in the fall.
In a statement, Hoskins said the Missouri Supreme Court’s order is now the only one in effect. “In accordance with that order, my Office is directing local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map,” he said. His earlier instruction to local election officials to use the new districts had already drawn a Missouri Supreme Court order to appear at a contempt hearing on Thursday, September 10 — a hearing that a federal judge refused to halt in the hours before the justices acted.
Reaction and the November Ballot
A string of legal wins had protected what the Republican National Committee’s election integrity communications director, Ally Triolo, described in a statement as Missouri’s fair and lawful map. The 11th-hour ruling, she added, pulled the rug out from under voters who had already cast primary ballots. “Changing the rules mid-election is reckless and wrong,” she said. Voters’ federal rights would be violated by a switch of districts before the general election, Republican state officials have argued.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, holds the Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District, and the redrawn map dismantles it, pushing pieces of the seat into neighboring districts and stretching what remains into heavily Republican territory. Republicans stood a strong chance, as the lines were drawn, of taking seven of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats, up from their current six-to-two advantage. In the U.S. House, Republicans hold a 219-214 majority, a figure that includes one independent who caucuses with them.
Opponents of the map submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures in December 2025 in pursuit of a statewide referendum. Hoskins rejected that petition on August 4, the final day available to him, and von Glahn filed suit in state court the same day. An order from the Missouri Supreme Court then placed the measure before voters as Proposition A, a veto referendum, on November 3, which lets the electorate decide whether future elections may use 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 addressed, leaves Clark’s ruling suspended as the underlying litigation proceeds.