Missouri campaign turns in 300,000 signatures to strike down gerrymandered map

Kacen Bayless, The Kansas City Star on Dec 9, 2025

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A campaign to strike down Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map submitted hundreds of thousands of petition signatures from residents across the state on Tuesday, a major step toward forcing a statewide vote on the map.

The campaign, called People Not Politicians, said it dropped off 305,968 signatures at the Secretary of State’s Office, roughly two and a half times the estimated amount required to hold a statewide referendum vote in 2026.

The signature dropoff marked a critical moment for the referendum campaign. Supporters raced across Missouri to collect signatures in less than three months to repeal the map, which lawmakers passed this fall under pressure from President Donald Trump.

“This unprecedented show of grassroots power signals the overwhelming public demand for Missourians to have a say in whether (the map) becomes law,” the campaign said in a statement.

The fate of the referendum is now in the hands of Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins. If Hoskins’ office determines the campaign submitted enough signatures, the map will be on hold until the statewide vote sometime next year.

Hoskins spokesperson Rachael Dunn confirmed the campaign submitted 691 boxes of signatures. The Secretary of State’s Office’s Election Division will be tasked with scanning and sorting the signatures so they can be verified by local election authorities, Dunn said.

“The Secretary is always happy to serve the people of Missouri,” Dunn said in an email. “There is no specific statement regarding this referendum petition.”

Whether the map reaches the statewide ballot is not certain. The campaign faces a series of attacks and is embroiled in an onslaught of legal fights with statewide officials, including Hoskins, who has attempted to cast doubt on the validity of roughly 90,000 signatures.

The referendum campaign has drawn intense national interest amid a broader redistricting frenzy across the country. Millions of dollars have poured into Missouri both to oppose and support the campaign.

The map passed by Republican lawmakers carved Kansas City into three Republican-leaning congressional districts. The goal was to push out Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and allow a Republican to win his 5th Congressional District.

Missouri’s map is an overt example of partisan gerrymandering, a term used to describe the practice of redrawing electoral district boundaries to favor one party over another.

Republicans currently control six of Missouri’s congressional districts while Democrats hold the 5th District in Kansas City and the 1st District in St. Louis, under a map lawmakers approved in 2022.

Congressional districts are typically only redrawn once every decade based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

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