Congressional map changes triggered frustration more than confusion for some Missouri voters

(AP) — Leslie Moody has strong opinions on politics. But ask her who was on the ballot for her U.S. House district in Kansas City when she voted in last month’s primary, and she isn’t sure, though she knew it wasn’t her current representative, Democrat Emanuel Cleaver.

That’s because the districts have changed fast in Missouri after the Republican-controlled legislature, encouraged by President Donald Trump, redrew its congressional map last year to give the GOP a better shot at picking up one more seat in the House as part of a multistate effort. Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight House seats. A flurry of litigation and contradictory decisions followed.

Supreme Court order Thursday seems to have resolved it for November’s general election, with the state going back to the map that was in place for 2022 and 2024. That means Moody’s neighborhood, which was briefly in the Republican-dominated 4th District, is back in a compact 5th District centered on Kansas City, one of the two currently represented by Democrats. The other, Trump-backed map split Kansas City into multiple districts stretching far outside the city and into areas with more conservative voters.

But for Moody, a 70-year-old retired chemist, the main feeling is something else: frustration. “It’s plain that it’s completely ridiculous,” she said. The new map would have rearranged representation The Trump-backed map left just two of the state’s eight congressional districts unchanged.

Louis-based 1st District — likely to be dominated by Democrats. The 5th, also currently represented by a Democrat, had the biggest change, with only about 2 in 5 voters in the old district included in the new one. Among the new additions: residents of the state capital, Jefferson City, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) east of Kansas City.

Carolyn McDowell, a longtime Republican activist from there, said she does not like that Republican lawmakers attempted to gerrymander districts in the middle of the decade. She learned Thursday that her home — temporarily shifted from Republican U.S. Bob Onder’s district to that of Democrat Cleaver — would again be back in Onder’s district, which stretches eastward to suburban St.