Politics
Inside the overlooked multi-million dollar fight to block Republicans’ Missouri gerrymander
Republicans and Democrats are quietly pouring millions of dollars into a fight trying to block Missouri’s new gerrymandered congressional map, as each party scrambles for any advantage they can find in the national fight for the House majority in 2026.
Missouri is one of six states that have redrawn their congressional lines — after President Donald Trump kicked off the redistricting war by pushing Texas to redraw — with the GOP-dominated legislature passing a new map in September that would eliminate Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-based seat.
But unlike in many other states, Democrats have a clearer path to try to block the map, at least for next year’s midterms. They’ve now launched an effort that operatives in the state say is attracting an unprecedented amount of money — and legal fights.
“Imagine the kind of democratic paralysis our state would be in if this happened every 10 years, or every time we decided to draw new maps,” said Aaron Blake, a GOP strategist based in Missouri. “That would just be chaos.”
Almost immediately after the map passed, Democrats in the state organized a campaign to repeal the new map through popular referendum. The campaign committee, People Not Politicians, will need to submit about 107,000 valid signatures before the Dec. 11 deadline to send the new maps to a referendum. If they submit enough valid signatures, the state would be temporarily unable to enact the new maps until voters can weigh in on the ballot measure.
Well-funded organizations on both sides have since rushed into the state, duking it out in a fight that has already spawned a complicated nest of court cases and some aggressive tactics seeking to undermine Democrats’ referendum campaign.
If the state’s new maps do come to a referendum, some Republicans are concerned voters might reject their bid to aid Trump’s effort to skew the odds of maintaining control of the House in Republicans’ favor.
“It will be a very uphill battle for Republicans if [the referendum] is on the ballot,” Blake said.
Democrats in Missouri, meanwhile, are confident they’ll have enough signatures to push the maps to a referendum — and they’re optimistic voters will be on their side when it comes time to vote on the maps.
“[Republicans] are afraid for this to go on the ballot, because they believe that Missourians will vote it down,” said Doug Beck, the top Democrat in the state Senate. “That’s why they’re trying as hard as they can to not let it go to the ballot.”
The Republican National Committee and the National Republican Campaign Committee donated a combined $100,000 days after the Put Missouri First PAC, the GOP’s ballot measure-focused committee, was formed. That was followed by two separate $1 million contributions from the Trump-aligned Securing American Greatness PAC and the American Action Network, the nonprofit arm of House Republicans’ primary super PAC.
Officers for Put Missouri First — including the group’s treasurer and a law firm that shares the organization’s address — did not respond to interview requests.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr. urged his social media followers to support the effort to block the referendum — a sign of the battle’s growing significance to Republicans outside of the state.
For the most part, Democrats in Washington have stayed out of People Not Politicians’ signature gathering campaign. But Democratic-aligned dark money groups have stepped in to contribute over $1.25 million to People Not Politicians, including a $500,000 contribution from American Opportunity Action, a newly-created left-leaning nonprofit that is also supporting a ballot measure campaign in Michigan to block a rewriting of the state’s constitution.
The committee also received $250,000 from former Rep. Cori Bush, the Missouri progressive who was first elected in 2020 but lost a primary in her St. Louis-area district last year. Bush is running for Congress again in the same seat, which would be largely unaffected by Missouri’s new map.
That level of fundraising from both parties is striking for a ballot measure fight in a state with a long history of referendum battles. Benjamin Singer — who has worked on different referendum committees in Missouri since 2018, and is the campaign director for a group seeking to put a constitutional amendment in front of voters to strengthen the state’s referendum laws — said he’s never seen a ballot measure fight with as much money coming in for both sides of the issue.
“They haven’t dominated with the big money, because they haven’t needed to,” he said.
Some opponents are seeking to impede Democrats’ signature collecting through questionable tactics. The Kansas City Star obtained a copy of a contract offering a canvasser for People Not Politicians $5,000 to stop collecting signatures. The paper could not identify the source of the contract, which Blue Light News has not independently verified.
And Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, a Republican, has sought to use Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration moves to target a firm working on signature collection for People Not Politicians that she accused of employing “illegal aliens.”
In a pair of social media statements, Hanaway said her office is investigating the firm, Advanced Micro Targeting, and said she’s contacted ICE about the situation. Advanced Micro Targeting has denied Hanaway’s claims.
Hanaway is also fighting against a potential referendum in the courtroom — she filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to declare that a referendum to block the legislature’s new maps violates both the U.S. Constitution and Missouri’s Constitution, leaning on principles of the “independent state legislature” theory that the Supreme Court largely rejected in the Moore v. Harper case in 2023.
In a statement, Hanaway said “Missouri will not allow out-of-state political groups to silence the voices of our citizens or override our state’s constitutional process. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office will defend the authority of Missouri’s elected representatives at every turn.”
Zachary Bluestone, a Trump-appointed judge assigned to the case, said he’ll decide whether to block the referendum ahead of the Dec. 11 deadline to submit signatures.
The federal case is one of at least seven lawsuits filed over the new maps or the potential referendum. Among those is a case brought to a Missouri state court by the ACLU, which has partnered with People Not Politicians, seeking to nullify the new congressional districts on the grounds that mid-decade redistricting violates a clause in the state’s constitution.
People Not Politicians is separately suing Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins for his handling of referendum procedure, including authoring language for the potential ballot measure that frames the old maps with six GOP-leaning seats as “gerrymandered,” and the new district lines with seven GOP-leaning seats as being a “more compact” map that “better reflects statewide voting patterns.”
“What’s going on in Missouri is an example of constitutional hardball,” said Travis Crum, a professor at Washington University Law School in St. Louis who specializes in election law.
And even if the ballot referendum goes in front of voters, it isn’t a guarantee the map will be blocked for 2026. The plethora of redistricting-related court cases in Missouri are being adjudicated in hearings and rulings that will likely occur before the end of January — giving state election officials enough time to schedule a potential ballot measure election next year, operatives and court watchers said.
“I just think the noise has peaked or will be peaking between now and mid-January,” Blake, the GOP consultant, said.
A version of this article first appeared in Blue Light News Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to Blue Light News Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
Not everyone thinks there’s an affordability crisis.
While many Americans say the cost of living is the top issue facing the U.S. more than any other, President Donald Trump’s MAGA base does not always agree, according to a new analysis of The POLITICO Poll. Just 28 percent of voters who self-identify as part of the MAGA movement say expenses have become less affordable since Trump took office.
In fact, MAGA voters are more likely to say things have gotten better rather than worse.
That’s a stark break from the rest of the country, including the voters who backed Kamala Harris in 2024 and those who voted for Trump but do not identify as part of the MAGA movement.
The Blue Light News Poll results reveal a complicated challenge for Republicans: In an election all about the economy, cost of living concerns are reinforcing partisanship divides — entrenching Democrats’ opposition to Trump — while also driving a wedge among Republicans’ own base. Now, GOP candidates are facing frustrated voters from all sides.
Harris voters are far more likely than Trump voters to say groceries, gas and other expenses have gotten more expensive since the president took office, despite facing similar increases in household costs, according to a Blue Light News analysis of cost of living data.
Democrats hope to ride that frustration to victory in November, and have made affordability their top messaging issue this fall. They’re poised to benefit from the backlash to Trump’s economic agenda — from his unpopular tariffs to an Iran war that’s raised gas prices — which politicians and strategists widely agree are helping motivate Democratic voters.
“Those Democrats are definitely going to go vote,” said Michigan-based GOP strategist Jason Roe. “And we’ve got some voters that are a little harder to get to the polls, and when they are mad, frustrated, disappointed, disillusioned, in disagreement, and we don’t have them motivated, that’s going to be a problem.”
Many of those disillusioned Trump voters, The Blue Light News Poll suggests, are the ones who don’t identify as part of the MAGA base.
Consider the 52% of non-MAGA Trump voters who say the cost of living in their area is the “worst” it has ever been: Nearly half say they either wouldn’t vote for a Republican in the midterms or are still making up their minds.
But what is a boon to Democrats today could be a problem for them later. Partisanship also shapes how Americans remember the economy in years past, the poll results show.
Harris voters have a more favorable memory toward Democratic presidents and Trump voters have a more favorable memory toward Republican presidents, each saying life was more affordable when their party held the reins.
Democrats and Republicans simply don’t share an understanding of the economic reality — and without a common frame for the past, nor whether things are improving in the present, any party in power stands to lose its grip against an increasingly frustrated opposition when the economy is the key issue.
This year, that will be a major challenge for Republicans.
MAGA vs. Non-MAGA vs. Democrats
The Blue Light News Poll asked adults across America last month about affordability in their area, including about local prices and their memory of when prices were more affordable in the past.
Across the board, Harris voters outpaced Trump voters in their pessimism about the economy. And among Trump voters, non-MAGA voters outpaced their MAGA counterparts.
For example, 70% of Harris voters and 52% of non-MAGA Trump voters say the cost of living is worse than they can “ever remember it being.” MAGA Trump voters disagreed — a 43% plurality said the cost of living today is bad, but they could “remember times when it was worse.”
The results are a warning sign about the Trump coalition: In question after question, the president’s most loyal base is still sticking with him, but among the non-MAGA voters he convinced to back him in 2024, their frustration more closely resembles how Harris voters feel.
“There will be voters who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 who know he’s made life more expensive and won’t vote for his party this time,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson. “Some will vote for a Democrat, some won’t vote. But they won’t cast a ballot for a Republican who they blame for the high cost of living.”
Of the non-MAGA Trump voters who say the cost of living is the worst they’ve seen, just 53% say they would vote for a Republican if the midterms were held tomorrow. More than 25% would vote for a Democrat or third-party candidate. The rest say they would stay home or have not yet made up their minds.
Changes to family budgets are similar on average among those that voted for Trump and those who voted for Harris, according to a Blue Light News analysis of data from the Living Wage Institute, a nonpartisan public benefit corporation that produces cost of living data. Across the country, family budgets have increased by 2.5 percent on average from early 2025 to early 2026, according to the Living Wage Institute.
But it is the concept of who is to blame that creates division among each voting bloc. Though each group is concerned about affordability — the cost of living is the most common concern for each — only MAGA Trump voters remain sympathetic to the current administration.
Young voters — and young men in particular — have also grown disillusioned with the Trump administration amid cost of living concerns, a warning sign for the GOP. Among those under the age of 25 who say the cost of living is the worst it’s ever been, 56% say they trust Democrats to bring down the costs. Just 20% trust Republicans to do the same.
“Young people feel like the system isn’t working for them,” said Joe Mitchell, a Republican running for Iowa’s open and competitive 2nd District. Mitchell, who is 29, would be the second Gen Z member to join the House if elected. “You see them being attracted to some of these DSA candidates like Zohran Mamdani. And they’re going to be attracted to these candidates if we don’t figure something out for them now.”
Partisanship even drives memory
Partisanship also colors how Americans see the past, making it difficult for any incumbent party to convince voters of plans for the future.
The Blue Light News Poll asked respondents whether it was easier or harder to afford everyday items in years past compared to today in one of two ways: In one, they were asked about a specific calendar year, and in another, the presidential administration in power at the time.
For each question framed around a calendar year, Trump and Harris voters gave similar answers. But when asked to compare how easy or hard it was to afford things during a particular presidential administration compared to today, their answers split along party lines.
For example, just over a third of both Harris and Trump voters said it was “easier” to afford everyday items in 2024 compared to today. But when asked the same question about the “end of [former President] Joe Biden’s term,” 55% of Harris voters said everyday items were easier to afford, compared to 39% of Trump voters.
The results show that Americans lack a common frame of reference on the issue most people care about — the cost of living — creating a massive hurdle for politicians hoping to win over new voters who may not be willing to listen.
The same effect happens among Trump voters looking back on a Democratic administration. When asked about costs in 2010 compared to today, 63% of Trump voters said everyday items were easier to afford then compared to now. But when asked about costs during the “middle” of former President Barack Obama’s first term — or 2010 — only 36% of Trump voters said the same.
It’s only when a political party is attached that Americans’ version of the truth changes.
When Blue Light News asked whether it was easier or harder to afford everyday items “just before the Covid-19 pandemic” or in “2019,” majorities from both parties said things were easier to afford then, and in both framings.
The challenge for both parties is that voters don’t know “who has a better plan for the future,” GOP communications strategist Kevin Madden said. “Instead, what you’re seeing is a gap — or a canyon — emerge between the rest of the country and Washington.”
He added: “When you see that gap emerge, watch out if you’re an incumbent.”
Alisa Vasquez and Andrew Howard contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump is hitting the campaign trail — and a series of his stops are in deep-red states he comfortably won in 2024.
Trump will campaign in Iowa, Florida, Texas and Alaska ahead of Election Day, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss not-yet-public plans. That’s on top of his scheduled stop in Oklahoma next week, as the RNC announced, and his visit to Alabama, which POLITICO first reported.
While the president has indicated a desire to stump for Ken Paxton in Texas and Dan Sullivan in Alaska, the addition of Iowa and Florida to his campaign schedule signals an expanded focus on red states as Republicans grow increasingly nervous heading into the final stretch of the midterms.
The president is also preparing to hold campaign rallies in more traditional battleground states starting Oct. 3, according to one of the people.
His travel schedule is a clear signal that the GOP is seeking to shore up their own territory — as rising voter anger over sky-high costs and mass deportations creates new openings for Democrats. The six confirmed states have highly watched Senate, House and gubernatorial contests this November, but they are also ones Trump won by double digits two years ago.
“While Democrats squabble over the last two cents their party has to spare, the president is barnstorming the country, energizing our base, and supercharging Republican candidates in key races and beyond,” said Natalie Baldassarre, an RNC spokesperson.
“We have the resources to spend, and Republicans are full steam ahead to protect and expand our majorities,” Baldassarre added.
The White House referred Blue Light News to the RNC.
Vice President JD Vance will also ramp up his campaign travel ahead of Election Day. He and Trump are expected to make stops in Ohio to boost GOP Sen. Jon Husted, as POLITICO has reported. Husted is trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in internal GOP polling by top Senate Republicans, according to two other people with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to share private details.
Trump’s latest midterms travel swing will first start with Oklahoma and Alabama — two deep-red states where Democrats haven’t made the same inroads in statewide elections as they have in other traditionally conservative states like Texas, Alaska and Kansas.
But his Alabama event could help drive turnout and shore up support for GOP state Rep. Rhett Marques, who is in a competitive race with Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures in the state’s 2nd District, despite Republicans’ effort to redraw the seat in their favor.
Republicans in Iowa, Texas and Alaska are growing increasingly alarmed about how close their Senate races are amid fallout from the Iran war and other policy moves by Trump. Florida Republicans have become uneasy about their own firewall, with some polling showing statewide races inside the margin of error.
Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate nominee in Iowa, recently publicly broke with Trump over the Iran war, as did several other Iowa House Republicans.
“The bigger question on everything continues to be, whatever you do, will there be enough time. I just don’t know,” said one person close to the White House. “We’re teetering on the edge of it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Alec Hernández contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is running into resistance within his own voter coalition, as more and more Republican candidates publicly break with him ahead of the November election.
New results from The POLITICO Poll help explain why: Non-MAGA Trump voters are more than twice as likely as self-identified MAGA Trump voters to say his mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, 31% to 14%. While roughly similar shares of both groups believe Trump’s campaign is about right, the MAGA base wants him to go even further: 36% of MAGA Trump voters say his campaign is not aggressive enough, compared with 23% of non-MAGA Trump voters.
Meanwhile, support across Trump’s entire voter coalition falls when it comes to deporting people beyond the most violent offenders, such as those with minor criminal offenses or who have been living in the U.S. for years without legal status.
The new survey, conducted by London-based Public First, reveals how Trump’s immigration agenda — which has long been one of his signature political issues and a reliable GOP rallying point — has divided the very coalition that helped power his two presidential wins. The president’s MAGA loyalists are still more inclined than other Trump voters to support a tougher immigration posture, but there are clear limits to how far voters want the administration to go.
Those intraparty tensions burst into public view this month, when Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) released a campaign ad pushing back against Trump’s deportation agenda, saying some of his efforts “have gone too far” and that Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024 “feel betrayed.” It was a remarkable break from a sitting GOP lawmaker over one of the president’s defining policies, as Democrats have locked in on Florida’s 27th District as a prime target in their bid to flip the House.
Salazar’s public rift with Trump exemplifies the fears Republicans had been privately warning about for months: that the president’s immigration enforcement — marked last year by high-profile, flashy raids that rippled through communities — was alienating moderate Republicans, independents, young voters and Latinos who support border security and immigration enforcement in theory but dislike how it is being carried out.
And as the party stares down a difficult midterm landscape, including in districts and states Trump won in 2024, other GOP candidates followed Salazar’s lead, increasingly putting distance between themselves and the administration on key issues like immigration — despite having voted last year to approve billions of dollars for border security and immigration enforcement. On Wednesday, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), whose race has tightened against Democrat Adam Hamilton, also softened his stance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement as raids in southwest Kansas prompt temporary business closures and schools.
“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe,” he wrote on social media, adding that he’s been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
The Blue Light News Poll finds most Americans — including majorities of both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — believe people convicted of serious violent or sexual offenses should be prioritized for deportation, underscoring broad agreement on a more targeted approach to enforcement.
The survey also finds that few people — including among both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — prioritized targeting other groups for deportations. Less than a quarter of each group say people convicted of minor criminal offenses should be prioritized. Support falls further when voters are asked about prioritizing people who have lived in the U.S. for several years without legal status or people with dependent children in the U.S.
“A lot of it has to do with how you talk about it. They don’t want amnesty for people who have broken the law. They want everybody to do it the right way,” said a person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss how Republicans are viewing the issue. “They understand that some people might be law-abiding, hard working.”
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Blue Light News is “skewing data to paint a false narrative.”
“The American people sent President Trump back to the White House to stop the invasion of our country and deport the millions of illegal aliens Biden and Democrats allowed into the country. The president is delivering on his promises,” she said.
Days after releasing the ad, Salazar said she had a “fantastic conversation” with Trump and urged him to protect the political “fortune” he had brought to the Republican Party on immigration. She also told CBS last weekend that Trump and the average American understand “the between the narco and the nanny and the gangster and the gardener.”
She said the administration should distinguish between criminals and unauthorized immigrants working in crucial industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and health care.
That distinction is also reflected in The Blue Light News Poll. Both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters are open to maintaining or increasing the number of people coming into the U.S. to work in sectors facing labor shortages, such as health care or agriculture. Sixty-five percent of MAGA Trump voters and 69% non-MAGA Trump voters say they want to see about the same number — or more — people coming to the U.S. to work in those sectors facing labor shortages.
“Trump 2.0 that took over in January 2025 completely misread what voters were telling him and Joe Biden during 2024, which was that they wanted to see more order and security over the U.S.-Mexico border,” said Matt Barreto, who conducted polling for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign. “Instead, what Trump told Americans was, ‘Now I’m going to go hunt down immigrants who are just working and contributing to America.’ And there was extremely limited support for that.”
Past POLITICO polling on immigration has shown that the Trump administration has been unable to reverse the damage with voters on the issue. Last fall, battleground Republicans were already expressing concern about the administration’s immigration tactics. Those concerns intensified in the months that followed, while negative voter sentiment hardened by April after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
The Trump administration, in the wake of bipartisan outrage, softened its rhetoric and abandoned flashy raids that often devolved into clashes with protesters. The president also installed Mullin, who moved quickly to repair relationships on Capitol Hill and keep the Department of Homeland Security out of the headlines.
But Mullin is also facing pressure from MAGA critics and immigration hardliners who think he’s not committed to the president’s vow to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. In an effort to shore up his support with that contingent, top administration accounts, including Mullin’s, have ramped up posts about ICE, arrests statistics and tough talk about the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.
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