The Supreme Court on Friday again blocked Missouri from using its Trump-backed 2025 House map for the November midterms, locking in the state's 2022 congressional lines while absentee and overseas voting are already underway.

In an unsigned per curiam stay in People Not Politicians v. Onder, the justices halted Eighth Circuit and Eastern District of Missouri orders that would have forced the 2025 map back into the live election. The Court said the Missouri Supreme Court has held that the 2025 map is not valid state law until voters approve it in a referendum, and that switching maps mid-election would create "electoral chaos." Ballots using the 2022 map have already been printed and mailed, the order noted. CBS News, PBS NewsHour/PBS NewsHour, and the Washington Examiner all treated Friday's order as the third high-court intervention against the redraw after earlier September stays.

Optics for November House math are immediate. The 2025 plan aimed to improve Republican odds in seven of eight districts; the current delegation is six Republicans and two Democrats. Missouri had even run its August primary under the 2025 lines before state and federal courts yanked the map back toward 2022. With the prior map locked, both parties recalculate candidate geography, ballot printing, and seat-flip scenarios under familiar lines. The official PDF order and state election calendars are the primary record; campaign spin is secondary.

Republicans lose a hoped-for redraw edge for this cycle. Democrats and citizen-petition backers call the referendum process vindicated. Either way, Missouri voters will cast November House ballots on the prior map unless the Court lifts its stay — which Friday's language strongly discourages before Election Day.