Missouri residents denounced a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts on Thursday as Republican lawmakers pressed ahead with President Donald Trump's strategy to bolster Republicans in next year's congressional elections.

Dozens of people turned out for the first public hearing on a plan that would split up a Kansas City congressional district to give Republicans a shot at winning seven of Missouri's eight U.S. House seats. Republicans already hold six of those seats.

Missouri is the third state to join an emerging national battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking advantage in the way U.S. House districts are drawn.

At Trump's prodding, Texas redrew its U.S. House districts last month to give Republicans a chance at winning five additional seats. California countered with its own revised map aimed at giving Democrats a shot at winning five more U.S. House seats. The California plan still needs voter approval in November.

The stakes are high because, nationally, Democrats need to gain just three seats in the 2026 elections to take control of the House. And, historically, the party of the president usually loses congressional seats in midterm elections, as happened during Trump’s first term in office.

Missouri's revised congressional map, as proposed by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, would target a seat held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by stretching it from Kansas City eastward to encompass rural Republican-leaning areas.

While lawmakers heard public criticism in Jefferson City, some opponents held a press conference in Kansas City near the point where three of the newly proposed districts would intersect. Edgar Palacios, president and CEO of the Latinx Education Collaborative, wore black to the event to decry the redistricting proposal.

“It feels like that, we are at a funeral — a funeral for democracy in Missouri,” Palacios said. “This plan is just not a political map. It is a weapon. It dismantles the fifth district, scattering our communities into the fourth and the sixth, binding urban Kansas City residents with rural Missourians who live over 250 miles away near the Iowa border. That is not representation.”

Ashley Sadowski, a mother whose 7- and 11-year-olds are students in Kansas City Public Schools, said the proposed map could have repercussions beyond who wins elections.

“Looking at this map, Missourians quickly recognize that its creators don't know us at all,” she said.

AP Video shot by Nicholas Ingram