New Missouri Congressional Maps appear to keep Fifth District in Democratic hands
The Missouri House and Senate redistricting committees on Thursday unveiled their joint proposed changes to the state’s Congressional Districts in a map that would likely allow Democrats to keep their existing two seats in Congress.
The maps, released a week before the Missouri Legislature is set to begin its 2022 legislative session, would add more Democratic voters to the 5th Congressional District, which encompasses Kansas City and its suburbs, while placing more Republican-leaning voters in the 4th and 6th Congressional Districts.
Republicans hold six of the state’s eight Congressional seats.
“This is a fair and constitutional map with common-sense boundaries that everyday Missourians can recognize,” said Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, a Republican from Jefferson City and the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting. “My House counterpart and I chose to make this joint announcement to emphasize the great care that went into drawing a map we were confident could survive legislative, judicial, and public scrutiny.”
Once a decade, the Missouri legislature is required to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative districts according to the population count recorded in the U.S. Census, in an effort to grant every citizen an equal say in who is elected to represent them. Each Congressional District in Missouri will be made up of roughly 770,000 people.
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposed changes, but the map appears likely to benefit the nine-term Congressman from Kansas City.
Earlier this year Cleaver expressed concern that Republicans might attempt to split his district in two in an effort to add an additional Republican representative to the Missouri Congressional delegation. The committee instead lopped off the eastern part of his district that stretches into Ray, Lafayette and Saline counties.
In his 2020 reelection bid, Cleaver lost Lafayette County by 35.8 percentage points, Ray County by 29 percentage points and Saline County by 22 percentage points.
Saline and Lafayette County would become part of the Fourth Congressional District which will be an open seat in 2022 because U.S. Rep. Vicki Hartzler is a candidate for U.S. Senate. Ray County would be split between the Fourth and the Sixth Congressional District, which is currently held by U.S. Rep. Sam Graves.
Graves office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Sixth would lose some of the Democratic voters from Jackson County under the new map.
Those changes would place more Republican voters in the 4th and 6th Congressional Districts, increasing the Republicans chances of maintaining control of the seats as party polarization between urban and rural counties has continued to increase.
The Missouri legislature still has to approve the proposed maps. A bill containing the new Congressional Districts was filed in the House of Representatives on Thursday by Rep. Dan Shaul, a Republican from Imperial.