Last September (2025), Gov. Kehoe called the legislature back for a special session to redraw the state’s eight congressional districts. The goal was to create seven safe Republican seats and one safe Democratic seat. The state’s current congressional makeup is six Republican seats and two Democratic seats.

The result of the special session, in which some extraordinary measures were taken to accomplish this task, chiefly among them changing the Senate rules to avoid prolonged debate, was a 7-1 map to be used during the 2026 election cycle.

However, the Missouri constitution allows citizen-led referendums as a check and balance on legislative action, and a group emerged to petition for a public vote on the new congressional map. After much confusion and political and legal wrangling, the new 7-1 map used to pick candidates for the general election this November was ruled never to have been in effect because of a valid referendum petition. Therefore, the map that will be used in November will be the 2022 map.

This means that the candidates picked during the August primary under the 2025 map will have to run in the districts created in 2022. Although the 2025 map significantly changed three of the eight districts, only the fifth district was changed to favor a Republican over the current Democrat. Thus, the current 6-2 congressional makeup will most likely remain the same. If voters approve the referendum on the 7-1 map in November, the 2025 map will be used in 2028. If voters reject the 2025 map, the 2022 map will most likely remain in effect through 2030.