Six candidates are seeking the Republican nomination to face off against Kansas City’s longtime Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, but only one lives in the district Republican lawmakers gerrymandered last year. Through property records and candidate interviews, The Star found that most of the candidates do not live in the state’s new 5th District, which stretches from Kansas City to the rural cities and towns spread across central Missouri. Many of them actually live in the 4th District, currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Alford.
After a series of court decisions that favored the gerrymandered map, Republican candidates began filing to challenge Cleaver. The district, which previously contained Kansas City and its suburbs, now stretches hundreds of miles east from Troost Avenue to central Missouri. The candidates came from all over: from Hartsburg, just north of Jefferson City, from Harrisonville to North Kansas City. But only one Republican candidate, Brad Patty, currently lives in the district.