KANSAS CITY, Mo.—In the last weeks of August 2025, President Donald Trump—in a move to combat his sinking approval ratings ahead of the 2026 midterm elections—signaled to Missouri Republicans his interest in a plan to steal Congressional seats and redraw the state’s electoral district boundaries. It’s a re-run of the scheme he and the GOP pulled off in Texas earlier this summer.
Currently, six of Missouri’s eight seats in Congress are held by Republicans and two by Democrats. On average in recent elections, some 40% of the state’s voting population have cast Democratic ballots, but only 25% of seats are held by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Republican plan pushed by Trump would steal one of those two Democratic seats by redrawing district lines in order to up the GOP total to seven.
The seat they’ve set their sights on is in Kansas City and held by Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver—the Fifth District. The Missouri Jobs With Justice chapter calls it a plot to “rig Missouri’s maps—splitting up Kansas City and silencing voters.”
Cleaver is the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and was the first Black mayor of Kansas City from 1991-99. With the help of Republican officials—including Gov. Mike Kehoe, Speaker of the State House Rep. Jon Patterson, and State Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin—Trump aims to wipe out Cleaver’s seat and deny the majority Black population of the Fifth District representation in Congress.
The GOP plan would chop up Cleaver’s district—which currently includes Kansas City and areas north of the Missouri River and east, covering Lee’s Summit, Independence, and Raytown—and lump a large part of it in with a voter base in the conservative and white majority region around the city of Columbia, an area 150 miles away from Kansas City.
“The government, in fact, is trying to redraw the nation’s conscience and the way this nation is going to function for our children and grandchildren,” Cleaver said at a Sept. 6 press conference at the Heavy Construction Laborers’ Local Union 663 Lodge. “We’re going to have to stand up and say, ‘no,’” the congressman declared.
The labor movement in Missouri sees the scheme as a clear attack seeking to divide and conquer, silence voices, and break up communities. Leading the fightback is a strong coalition of labor unions and allied organizations. Including the Missouri/Kansas SEIU, Stand Up KC, The Missouri Workers Center, Missouri Jobs with Justice, the ACLU, the NAACP, and others.
Workers, union organizers and officers, and allies from all across Missouri have been holding mass meetings of thousands in St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, St. Charles, and Columbia. They’ve rallied in their communities on Labor Day, and on Sept. 10 workers march on the state capitol to make their voices heard and demand Republicans not follow the demands of their billionaire backers.
The Missouri AFL-CIO encouraged people to “Come say HELL NO to corrupt maps and come make sure our voices are heard,” at the Wednesday rally in Jefferson City.
“Working people refuse to lay down and allow this blatant theft of democracy,” one activist said in advance of the march. All across Missouri, people are stepping up to fight against Trump and MAGA’s attack on Black representation.
The gerrymandering of Congressional maps isn’t the only struggle facing working people in Missouri, though. The Republican-dominated House also just passed a bill making it harder for the people to put constitutional referenda on the ballot, such as last year’s abortion rights amendment.
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