Kansas City’s longtime Democratic U.S. representative, who is fighting to hold onto his seat in a newly redrawn district, now knows who he will face in November’s general election.
Incumbent Rep. Emanual Cleaver II was the only Democrat running in the primary. On Tuesday, Republican voters selected Missouri State Sen. Rick Brattin as their candidate to unseat him.
Brattin ran in a crowded Republican primary, beating Taylor Burks, Brad Patty, Brett Hueffmeier and Micah Beebe.
Brattin received 44% of the vote, according to unofficial results on Tuesday night. He was one of six Republican candidates in the primary election, only one of whom, 25-year Army veteran Patty, actually lives in the district.
On November ballots, voters will also see Randy Langkraehr running under the Libertarian ticket.
State Sen. Rick Brattin was elected in 2020 to Missouri’s 31st senate district, covering Cass, Bates and Johnson counties. He previously was the auditor of Cass County and served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 2010 to 2018.
Brattin received a last-minute endorsement from President Donald Trump on Monday, who called the former state senator a “MAGA Warrior.”
Brattin has closely aligned himself with Trump and his agenda, including on reproductive rights and immigration. On his campaign website, Brattin says he will defend the 2nd Amendment and touted his support of Missouri’s Second Amendment Preservation Act, which banned local police from enforcing federal gun laws. That law, passed in 2021, was struck down by a U.S. District Judge in 2023. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the law last year.
Missouri’s 5th Congressional district, which Cleaver has represented since 2005, was the target of Republican-led redistricting efforts last year. Missouri’s Republican supermajority redrew the state’s congressional map after President Donald Trump’s called on states to shore up the Republican majority in Congress during this year’s midterms. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in March that the new map is valid, upholding the state legislature’s right to mid-decade redistricting.
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins on Tuesday rejected a citizen-led effort to put the redrawn maps up for a statewide vote in November. The Missouri political group People Not Politicians, which led the campaign to put the maps before voters, announced they would take Hoskins to court over his rejection.
Republican lawmakers’ move cracked the 5th Congressional district, which once encompassed all of Kansas City, Missouri, into three separate districts — the 4th, 5th and 6th. The new 5th District now extends east from Troost Avenue, a historic racial and economic dividing line, nearly 200 miles to Osage and Maries counties, grouping majority Black neighborhoods in east Kansas City with much whiter, more rural communities in mid-Missouri.
Cleaver has been outspoken against these redistricting efforts, and has previously said using Troost Avenue as a new dividing line was “simply egregious.”
Republicans have said the new map better reflects Missouri’s conservative values.
The November election between Cleaver and Brattin will serve as one of the first tests of whether Missouri will lose one of its two Democratic representatives in Congress. On the other side of the state, Democratic incumbent Wesley Bell won his primary to continue representing St. Louis.
