President Trump is railing against Missouri's top court, which has blocked the use of new GOP-friendly congressional maps for November. In a unanimous ruling on Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Court said the maps—already used in last month's primaries—cannot be in place for the midterm elections. The court said the maps need to be approved in a referendum, which will be on the November ballot. In a Truth Social post after the ruling, Trump labeled the decision a "Dark Day for 'Justice' in Missouri" and blasted it as "horrible" and "unConstitutional," the Hill reports.
"The Missouri Supreme Court just ridiculously ruled in favor of changing the maps back to what they were a long time ago," Trump wrote. "It's called, Ancient History!" State lawmakers approved the maps in mid-September last year. Republicans, who hold six of Missouri's eight US House seats, had hoped the map would help them add another. The state's Republican attorney general plans to ask the US Supreme Court to intervene. "We are confident that the federal courts will not allow every Missouri voter to be disenfranchised—which is what today's decision does," Catherine Hanaway said in a statement.
Democrats, meanwhile, hailed the ruling as a grassroots win against gerrymandering. The group People Not Politicians Missouri had gathered more than 300,000 signatures to force a referendum on the new map, NBC News reports. The group appealed to the state's top court after Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins refused to certify the referendum. The decision means longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, whose Kansas City-area district had been reshaped to include GOP-leaning rural counties, is likely to keep his seat. The ruling "affirms that the people should choose their politicians, not the other way around," Cleaver wrote on X. "Democracy prevails."