Democrat drops out of Missouri congressional race, blames new gerrymandered maps

The field of Democrats running for a chance to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner in Congress got smaller. Ben Samuels announced his departure from the midterm primary contest Friday morning, blaming partisan gerrymandering for his early exit. "I was drawn out of the district in this final version of the map," Samuels told KSDK. "The district explicitly was designed to be hard or unwinnable for Democrats." Wagner's office declined to comment on Samuels' departure from the race. Samuels…