HARDBALL: Missouri Republicans advance plan to draw Rep. Cleaver into Republican-leaning seat.

The House voted 89-63 Monday night to adopt Rep. Dirk Deaton’s legislation, which would link a portion of Cleaver’s Kansas City-based district to a number of largely rural counties. It would also place other parts of the state’s largest city into the districts of Reps. Mark Alford and Sam Graves, put all of St. Charles County into Rep. Bob Onder’s 3rd District and add part of Jefferson County and all of Washington, Gasconade and Crawford counties to Rep. Ann Wagner’s 2nd District.

It’s a big reversal from just three years ago, when the GOP supermajority soundly rejected a 7-1 map to replace the current six Republican districts and two Democratic ones. Republicans in 2022 worried that splitting Democratic voters among Cleaver, Alford and Graves would make all the seats competitive – especially in a bad election year for the GOP.

But Trump has been prodding GOP-leaning states like Texas, Missouri, Indiana and Florida to overhaul their districts this year. The president’s party often does poorly in midterm elections, and some Missouri Republicans made no secret that they want to go after Cleaver to prevent Democrats from retaking the House next year.

It’s nice to see the GOP play by rules the Democrats thought were just for them.