It began with President Trump asking Texas to redraw its congressional map to win five additional House seats for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections. This led California to respond with its own remapping initiative (which requires voters’ assent this fall) to cancel out those seats, by taking back five seats for Democrats. Now, Missouri has entered the fray with its own remapping plans, to give Republicans one additional House seat in 2026.
Given the razor-thin split between Republicans and Democrats in the House, each seat is quite valuable. A House majority, no matter how small, may be the difference between the president’s agenda continuing or Democrats providing checks and balances against him — as well as the likelihood of a third impeachment.
A deep dive into the proposed new Missouri map reveals what the state might accomplish, and what other states can learn in the process.
In the 2024 election, Republicans won six seats, while Democrats won two seats. This was achieved by packing Democratic voters around the Kansas City and St. Louis metropolitan areas into two districts.
Districts 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 were all won comfortably by Republicans. District 2 was won by a Republican as well, though the margin was just 12 percentage points. That district borders on St. Louis County, moving west from the city.
Districts 1 and 5 were won by Democrats — the Kansas City-based District 5 less comfortably than the St. Louis-based District 1.
Because the old District 5 was won by a Democrat by less than 80,000 votes in 2024, the new map cracks the Kansas City area across new Districts 4, 5 and 6. The excess Republican votes in the old Districts 4 and 6 (especially 4) are now joined with the old District 5 to guarantee Republicans will win the new District 5. The remapping dilutes the Democratic vote in the Kansas City area.
The St. Louis would be more problematic for Republicans to capture. They could have tried to use a small section of the old District 2 to connect more voters from the old District 8 to dilute more of the Democrat voters in the new District 1. This new District 1 will also be the only majority minority district in the state, needed to satisfy the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Republicans could have gerrymandered it more effectively, if they were willing to risk the new Districts 2 or 3 and violate the Voting Rights Act, which would have made it an easy target for lawsuits. But they weren’t, so the new District 1 will go to a Democrat as it now stands.
The 2022 midterm election results were essentially the same as the 2024 results, though the voter turnout in 2022 was lower than in 2024, as is to be expected. This means that voters who specifically came out in 2024 to vote for Trump and voted Republican down-ticket may not show up in 2026, giving Republicans pause to take too many risks with their new map. Settling for one extra seat is what they have opted for.
Map drawing has become an exercise in computer modeling. Computational redistricting uses algorithms to draw maps with scalpel-like precision. Drawing maps manually, whether to create them with an eye on fairness to voters or to serve party interests, is no longer necessary.
What remains to be seen is how voters cast their votes on Election Day. Past voting trends are useful, and how voters are registered can be informative. Independent voters are always wild cards and will ultimately decide how many districts each party wins in 2026.
Note that the 2020 Missouri House map received reasonable grades from the Princeton Gerrymandering project. A more extreme gerrymander at that time would have given the Republican Missouri state legislators the map that they are now proposing. They had the votes to enact any map they wanted back in 2020. They are now wasting state taxpayer dollars to accomplish little for the well-being of its constituents.
Remapping hysteria is spreading across the country, with Ohio the only state required by state law to redistrict this year. What this situation now teaches every state, red or blue, is that extreme gerrymandering is the new normal, effectively placing the interests of the parties above the interests of the people.
Let us never forget why this is happening.
It began with Trump asking Texas for five more districts in the midterm elections. The party that holds the White House has nearly always lost seats in the House in the following midterm elections. Given the thin margin by which Republicans hold the House, nefarious actions are needed to hold their majority. Trump has proven himself to be willing to do anything to maintain his power.
In the Ukraine-Russia conflict, a ceasefire will begin when Vladimir Putin decides to stop launching rockets and missiles into Ukraine. The same holds true of Trump with respect to the current remapping conflict in the U.S.
When the president stops launching requests that undermine the autonomy of states, then perhaps state legislators can get back to serving their constituents, which is what they were elected to do.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a computer science professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a data scientist, he uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy. He is the founding director of the Institute for Computational Redistricting.
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