With Texas Republicans nearing completion of a new congressional map that could yield their party five additional seats in the House, President Donald Trump is escalating his efforts to secure more GOP-friendly seats in other states.
Deep-red Missouri appears to be the next target, with Trump writing on Truth Social Thursday that “The Great State of Missouri is now IN.”
“I’m not surprised. It is a great State with fabulous people. I won it, all 3 times, in a landslide. We’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!”
Missouri’s GOP Gov. Mike Kehoe has not publicly committed to a special session to draw new lines but has made clear that he is considering it.
“Governor Kehoe continues to have conversations with House and Senate leadership to assess options for a special session that would allow the General Assembly to provide congressional districts that best represent Missourians,” Kehoe’s communications director Gabby Picard said in an email to CNN on Thursday.
“Governor Kehoe appreciates President Trump’s attention to this issue on behalf of Missourians,” she added.
CNN has reached out to the White House for more information.
Any redistricting in Missouri is expected to occur in September when lawmakers convene for an already-scheduled veto session.
Republicans currently control six of eight US House seats, and a GOP-drawn map is expected to target the 5th congressional district in the Kansas City area, held by 11-term Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. He has vowed to mount a court challenge to any map that takes aim at his seat.
Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of National Republican Redistricting Trust and a key player in redistricting battles, told CNN that he expects Missouri Republicans to advance a map that will give the party seven of eight seats – and anticipates more Republican officials to follow suit in other states.
“I do think that generally, this is something that the base of the Republican Party is really supportive of right now,” he said. “And if you are a Republican elected official and you’re seeing this, it’s good politics to look at opportunities in your own state.”
Trump and his allies have urged Republicans in several states – including Missouri, Ohio, Indiana and South Carolina – to take aim at a handful of Democratic seats in their states in a quest to preserve or grow the GOP’s narrow majority in the US House in the 2026 midterm elections. Florida has also launched a legislative committee to examine redistricting, but any action is likely to occur next year.
Mid-decade redistricting is rare, and the effort to draw new lines marks an extraordinary campaign by the president and his allies to keep Democrats from controlling the House during the last two years of Trump’s second term in the White House.
The move underway in Texas to squeeze out as many as five additional GOP seats has sparked a counter-punch in California where Democrats – who control the governorship and state legislature – are advancing bills to amend the state constitution to temporarily redraw their maps to create five additional Democratic seats. The proposal would give California voters the final say in approving the revised maps in a special election this November.
But Republicans – who control the governors’ offices and legislatures in 23 states compared to just 15 held by Democrats – have more avenues to squeeze out additional seats that benefit their party as the redistricting battles spread.
The sprint to create new maps is “a pretty clear indication of how concerned and how afraid Trump and Republicans are about actually letting voters decide the midterm elections,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. She said the group and its affiliated organizations plan to use “every tool at our disposal,” including litigation, to oppose new GOP-drawn maps.
In Missouri, however, Democrats have few immediate options to thwart a Republican-led effort to give the GOP an additional US House seat. Republicans hold a supermajority in the state legislature.
Democrats “plan to fight and be as loud as possible” in opposing the map, House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Democratic state representative from the Kansas City area, told CNN. But, she said, “ultimately, the Missouri Legislature – having supermajority Republican control – means that if this is what they want, this is what they’ll get.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Arit John contributed to this report.
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