Missouri elections 2026

People Not Politicians filed open-records requests to review the collected signatures and says the minimum number required for a statewide referendum should be validated by the Missouri secretary of state.

Passed by Republican lawmakers last year, Amendment 4 would require a majority of voters in every Missouri congressional district to approve a proposed constitutional amendment for it to pass. That would allow a small minority of voters to defeat petition campaigns.

Missouri state Sen. Rick Brattin, of Harrisonville, is running for the 5th congressional district even though he does not currently live there. The Kansas City-area race is attracting a big list of Republican hopefuls because it was redrawn to include rural areas hundreds of miles away.

A bad national environment for Republicans could affect this year's election cycle, which will feature critical ballot measures like a proposal to repeal abortion rights, restricting citizen-led initiative petitions, and deciding the fate of the gerrymandered congressional map.

Although Secretary of State Denny Hoskins says the Republican-favoring map from 2025 is now in effect, a court case could require congressional candidates to run instead within the lines drawn back in 2022. For Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, that could either mean an easy reelection bid or the hardest campaign of his life.

Missouri Republicans, acting at the urging of President Trump, redrew Cleaver's Kansas City-area district to make it harder for a Democrat to win. Despite uncertainties about which map will be upheld, Cleaver has filed to run for reelection.

Primary voters in a small number of districts play an outsized role in deciding who wins Congress. The Trump-initiated mid-decade redistricting wave, which led to a new Republican-drawn map in Missouri, is driving that number of competitive seats even lower.

A Missouri citizen group collected 49,773 pages of signatures to force a statewide vote on the redrawn congressional map passed by Republican lawmakers last year. But Secretary of State Denny Hoskins will only submit 33,068 for verification, saying the rest are invalid.

Missouri Republicans made big moves last legislative session to force through their agenda on abortion, redistricting and more — and now the consequences will be felt this year. Democrats are determined to stall action in the state Senate as retribution.

This week, petitioners challenging Missouri's gerrymandered new congressional map submitted 305,000 signatures seeking to halt the law and put it up for a statewide vote. That's more than twice as many as needed. But a whole tangle of legal challenges lay ahead.

Opponents of Missouri's gerrymandered congressional map just submitted more than 305,000 signatures to force a vote on the plan. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins still has the chance to reject a referendum, but legal experts don't expect that move to succeed in court.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected 90,000 signatures for a referendum on the newly redrawn congressional map, because they were collected before Gov. Mike Kehoe had signed the map into law. But the group People Not Politicians argues that the signatures are valid.