America is currently experiencing an unprecedented wave of mid-decade redistricting. As of September of 2025, eleven states, including Missouri, have made some progress towards redrawing their electoral boundaries for the 2026 elections, and Missouri joins Texas in having officially signed a new district map into law. Barring the potential of a lawsuit overturning the map, many Missouri voters, particularly those around Kansas City, will find themselves in a new electoral district in 2026, and those changes are likely to force Democratic representative Emanuel Cleaver out of his seat. 

Missouri’s Redistricting Plan and House Bill 1

Missouri’s redistricting effort can be found in Missouri House Bill 1 of the 103^rd General Assembly’s second extraordinary session (HB1). HB1 is a lengthy bill, assigning every voting district and county in the state of Missouri to one of eight electoral districts, but the key changes proposed in the bill can be found by comparing the new district map to the prior map, approved for use in 2022. 

Both maps have eight electoral districts, but the shape of several districts, particularly District 5, have been changed. Where District 5 used to contain most of the Kansas City area and nothing else, it now extends several hundred miles into rural (and reliably Republican) central Missouri. The north and south ends of the city have been placed in districts 6 and 4 respectively, which each also cover an extensive region of rural Missouri. The result is that district 5, currently held by long-serving Democrat Emanuel Cleaver II, will now lean Republican, leaving only one Democrat-leaning district in the state.

Governor Mike Kehoe signed HB1 after it cleared the state legislature, officially enshrining the new electoral map into Missouri law. However, its path forward has become fraught. Four lawsuits (at time of writing) have challenged the bill’s legality, with most emphasis being placed on the compactness (or lack thereof) of the new fifth district and the fact that the state constitution does not permit mid-cycle redistricting. Emanuel Cleaver has also promised a lawsuit if HB1 passes, so it is likely that more lawsuits are still to come.

The fate of HB1’s new electoral map will therefore depend on the decisions of several courts, and it is likely that, whatever the outcome of the initial trials, every verdict will be appealed up through the courts. 

The National Rise of Redistricting

Missouri’s redistricting effort is part of a broader effort by both political parties to create new House seats for their respective party for the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. President Trump has pushed Republican-led states to create more Republican-leaning districts, concerned that midterm election results will swing against Republicans. In the 23 midterm elections since 1934, the president’s party has lost House seats in all but three elections; Republicans currently hold a six-seat majority with three vacant seats, so any lost seats in the midterms may end the Republican Party’s control of the chamber. 

In response to Republican efforts to gain more seats in Texas, Missouri, and elsewhere, Democratic state governments have proposed their own retaliatory redistricting efforts. California Governor Gavin Newsom has taken the lead in this effort, proposing a new map that would likely swap six currently-red seats to Democrats in 2026. California’s proposition 50 is slated to arrive at the polls in November, with California citizens voting directly on whether to approve the map. Current polling indicates that the California public supports the measure, 51% to 34%, but there is still over a month before votes will be cast. Similar “reactive” redistricting has been planned in other Democratic-led states such as Maryland, but has seen somewhat limited success outside of California.

With both political parties pushing partisan redistricting, a grassroots campaign to limit redistricting has gained steam. Groups such as Common Cause have been fighting to prevent partisan redistricting and leading anti-gerrymandering protests, particularly in Republican-led states such as Indiana. Even in California, opinions are split on Proposition 50’s “reactive” redistricting, with 49% of survey respondents believing Prop 50 to be a bad thing, including 13% of those who are voting for it and 96% of those who oppose it.

Polling in Missouri shows that voters are against House Bill 1’s redistricting plan, though the margins in Missouri are significantly narrower. A Democratic Party poll finds that 48% of Missouri voters oppose the redistricting move, while 37% approve of it. Missouri voters have also attempted to force a statewide referendum on the vote (similar to California’s upcoming Prop 50 vote), which is in the early stages of collecting signatures. Even with Governor Kehoe signing HB1 on September 28th, the array of lawsuits and attempts to demand a popular referendum on redistricting leave the future of Missouri’s congressional district lines murky at best. 

For those interested in redistricting, particularly in Missouri, Jewell and Pi Sigma Alpha will be hosting a panel discussion on gerrymandering on October 15^th at 6:30 pm.

Young people, especially the 18 to 24 year old bloc, are notorious for their poor turnout especially in midterm elections. That itself is no new phenomena, young people have never matched or surpassed their older peers in voter turnout. Yet for decades the problem has been worsening and it is unclear if the 2018 midterms will be any different.

The reason behind young people’s apathy is not definitively known. Different experts purport widely varying causes, but most experts agree that young people’s stake in society is at least a significant factor.  The young today get married older, have children older and are much more transitory in their twenties than past generations.

As per The Economist, settling down gives citizens more stake in their community because if they own property, if they have children they are more likely to care about issues such as how local schools are run thus they have more incentive to vote. Today’s young people are a different sort altogether.

The reason for voter apathy and low turnout cannot solely be laid at the feet of voters and society however.  

The elective system in the U.S. turns off many would be voters with its structural design. The Electoral College allows for a winner of the popular vote to not be elected, as has occurred twice now in the new millennium, which disheartens some voters. Candidates winning office with a plurality of the vote and not a majority is often seen as undemocratic.

Even the simple day of the election – a Tuesday – adds unnecessary difficulty. People find it hard to take off from work and school or to find time outside those commitments to vote. For college students particularly those studying far from home this problem is especially significant and only imperfectly addressed by absentee ballots.

Compounding these structural issues are the actions that elected officials engage in, in order to aid their own reelection. Unnecessarily harsh and stringent voter I.D. laws that block or aim to block significant segments of U.S. citizens from voting is one common action. By far the most pervasive issue, though, is gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering as defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary is: “to divide or arrange (a territorial unit) into election districts to give one political party an electoral majority in a large number of districts while concentrating the voting strength of the opposition in as few districts as possible.”

Gerrymandering itself is not remotely a new phenomenon, it has existed almost since the beginning of the American Republic. What is a new and concerning development is technology allowing political parties to gerrymander with pinpoint precision as well as a new trend among the parties in how they gerrymander.

In the past, political parties were inclined to arrange election districts where their political strength is relatively well distributed so that in wave elections they could gain staggering amounts of seats. In recent decades, gerrymandering has changed from that mode to parties maximizing their own representation by building safe districts and packing their opponents into a  smaller amount of districts that would be safely their opponents.

Most of the time when people talk about gerrymandering, they are discussing it on the national level. Gerrymandering affects who receives the majority for representation in the House, but the issue is far worse at the state level.

In the 2016 elections for state representatives across the nation, the Denver Post calculated that 42 percent of candidates ran unopposed. The reason found in most instances was gerrymandered districts giving one party an advantage ranging from distinct to overwhelming in hundreds of races.

Though 2018 has revealed itself to be slightly better in this regard, the issue still remains. In over 25 of Missouri’s 163 member House of Representatives races in 2018 candidates face no opposition in the general election.

The 2018 election does show signs of breaking with the past in regards to political turnout. The polarizing election of Donald Trump has energized young people in both support and opposition to the president.

Young people in 2018 have turned out in rallies, protests, and marches across the country in response to the President. One in five Americans, including young people, have participated in political protests since 2016. Young people are at the vanguard of socio-political movements across the U.S. from the survivors of the Parkland Shooting in Florida have spearheaded a nationwide movement aimed at achieving stricter gun laws to the Millennials and Generation Z activists driving the #MeToo Movement.

Energy is particularly notable on the left, where young voters have been buoyed by an influx of diverse, youthful candidates like the now famous Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who toppled powerful House Democrat Joe Crowley in their primary. While the right has been less active, the contentious confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh stirred their ire and there have been signs in recent polls that the right’s energy is rising.

Photo courtesy of wsj.com.