President Donald Trump’s effort to reshape the nation’s U.S. House districts met a split decision on Tuesday, as state-level Republicans in South Carolina and Missouri reached opposite conclusions about the political and legal risks of redrawing maps ahead of the November midterms.
The Missouri Supreme Court delivered two unanimous rulings just hours after hearing arguments, upholding a map adopted at Trump’s urging last year. The decisions, the state’s Republican attorney general Catherine Hanaway said, “are a complete victory for Missouri and for the people’s elected representatives.” The ACLU and the Campaign Legal Center, which represented voters challenging the map, said in a joint statement that the court had ruled “against voters in every respect” and that “this state — and our democracy — are worse off for this outcome.”
At the center of the Missouri litigation was a district anchored in Kansas City, long represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the city’s first Black mayor. The new map replaces a compact urban district that covered 20 miles and two counties with one that runs 200 miles across 15 counties. Abha Khanna, an attorney for the challengers, described the district as “a sprawling behemoth that cuts clear across the state to unite territories that share nothing in common.” But the court accepted the argument of Republican Party attorney John Gore, who said no Missouri court had ever struck down a congressional map for failing the compactness requirement and that the map as a whole satisfied the standard.
In a separate case argued the same day, the court also allowed the map to take effect immediately, rejecting a bid to suspend it while election officials verify referendum signatures. Missouri Solicitor General Lou Capozzi argued that suspending the map before signature validation would let activists temporarily undercut laws by submitting fraudulent petitions. Jonathan Hawley, representing voters seeking the referendum, countered that not suspending it “would dilute the referendum right, if not destroy it altogether.” The court agreed with state officials; Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has until Missouri’s primary-election day, August 4, to determine whether the petition meets constitutional requirements.
In South Carolina, the Senate declined to grant the House permission to redraw its districts before the June 9 primary. The 29–17 vote fell two votes short of the two-thirds majority required, with five Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition. The proposal would have allowed lawmakers to return after the regular session ends Thursday to consider a House committee-endorsed map that could eliminate the state’s only Democratic-held seat, represented by longtime U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn.
Trump had posted on social media that he was closely watching the vote, urging senators to “be bold and courageous” and to delay the primaries so new maps could be drawn. But Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey acknowledged the pressure while rejecting it. “I got too much Southern in my blood,” Massey said. “I’ve got too much resistance in my heritage.” Several GOP senators also expressed concern that the proposed map could backfire by pushing enough Democrats into neighboring districts to threaten Republican incumbents, potentially reducing the party’s current 6–1 split to 5–2 or even 4–3.
The maneuvering in South Carolina and Missouri is part of a broader, intensifying national redistricting fight. Republican leaders believe they could gain as many as 14 seats from new House maps enacted so far in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Democrats think they could gain six seats from maps in California and Utah, though the Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a map that could have yielded four additional Democratic seats.
The battle has been inflamed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act and provided legal grounds for states to try to eliminate districts with large minority populations. The ruling, arising from Louisiana, invalidated a majority-Black district as an illegal racial gerrymander. Its ripple effects are being felt across the South. In Louisiana, lawmakers are weighing Republican-backed proposals that would eliminate one or both of the state’s two Democratic-held congressional seats, while Democrats advocate for a map that preserves two majority-Black districts centered on Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
During a Louisiana Senate committee hearing that stretched late into the night, Josiah Hardy, a high school sophomore, told lawmakers that his great-grandfather had fought for civil rights and equal representation when Black voters were disenfranchised. “Why are we still fighting the same fight decades later,” Hardy said. “My great-grandfather believed democracy is stronger when more people are included, not excluded. Further generations should not have to keep fighting the same battles for fairness and voting rights that leaders before us have already fought.”
In Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an order requiring the state to use a map with two majority-Black districts, clearing the way for a 2023 map with only one such district to be used in the upcoming elections. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced an August 11 special primary for four of the state’s seven congressional districts, a move that gives Republicans an opportunity to capture an additional seat.