8th Circuit Backs Trump Map, but 2 SCOTUS Stays Keep 2022 Districts

For legal and regtech professionals, this case is a live masterclass in emergency appellate practice: a three-judge 8th Circuit panel ordered a permanent injunction while simultaneously staying it, all while the U.S. Supreme Court's earlier stays remain in force. The result is a procedural knot that tests the limits of lower-court authority, the Purcell principle, and election administration law just weeks before voters cast ballots.

On September 21, 2026, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that Missouri must use the new Republican-drawn congressional districts backed by President Donald Trump in the November general election, the same map used in the state's August primary. The panel directed a lower court judge to issue a permanent injunction barring use of any other map, reasoning that a reversion to the districts used in 2024 and 2022 would violate the U.S. Constitution. Yet the panel simultaneously stayed its own order for one week to allow an emergency appeal, and the lower court judge promptly implemented that delay, meaning the ruling has no immediate practical effect.

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Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that Missouri must use the new Republican-drawn congressional districts backed by President Donald Trump in the November general election, the same map used in the state's August primary.

The decision is the latest turn in years of litigation over Missouri's congressional boundaries. The U.S. Supreme Court has already twice sided against the Trump-backed map. Earlier in September 2026, the high court blocked enforcement of a lower court order favoring the new map pending a potential appeal and eventual decision. As a result, Missouri is currently on track to run its November election with the same congressional districts it used in 2022 and 2024, following prior decisions by both the Missouri Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Eighth Circuit's action creates a sharp procedural and substantive conflict with the Supreme Court's emergency docket. A federal appeals court has now declared that using the old map would be unconstitutional, even as the high court has prevented the new map from going into effect for the general election. This is not a final merits resolution; it is an interlocutory appellate ruling that sets up another emergency application. Opponents said they will file an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the one-week stay is clearly designed to give the justices time to act before the order would otherwise take effect.

The election administration stakes are unusually high. Local election officials have already sent absentee ballots to overseas citizens and military voters using the 2022 districts, and state law requires absentee ballots to be available to all other voters by Tuesday, September 22, 2026. If the appeals court's injunction were ultimately enforced, officials might have to scramble to reprogram ballot systems, mail replacement ballots, and reconcile voters who cast ballots under one set of district boundaries while others vote under another. Already-cast absentee ballots cannot be changed by voters even if the district boundaries change, which would create two classes of November voters in the same congressional contest. That kind of late disruption is exactly what the U.S. Supreme Court's Purcell principle has long cautioned against.