The cities and nearby suburbs are the real problem...
Precisely.
Look at the “county” electoral map.
It’s a sea of red, with a few splotches of blue thrown in, overwhelmingly in the metro areas of the country.
And it’s my guess that most of those “red” areas conduct their elections on the up-and-up, unlike the big cities.
I’ve heard proposals for “city states” talked about sometimes.
In such proposals, New York City, and its suburban counties, would become a separate state.
The same could happen with Los Angeles County becoming its own state. And Cook County with Chicago being its own state.
The argument is that these places have more population than many other states. And politically, if these cities were no longer part of the states they dominate, then the remainder of those states would be able to elect more conservatives to office.