Those boundaries are fairly irrelevant to the presidential election process. I believe only Maine assigns electors based on who wins a particular district versus who wins the overall statewide race.
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/row/landsurveys/Study_material/Stat...
It might be possible to interpret some of the proposals for the shape of the California-Nevada border as reflecting a kind of gerrymandering or considerations of political strategy. Maybe that's historically true of other U.S. state boundaries? (But the states haven't generally redrawn their boundaries in response to demographic changes over time.)
Republicans in Congress passed the 1862 Homestead Act, offering free land to settlers who would move to territories
that would eventually become states — creating more Senate seats and Electoral College votes for a Republican Party
eager to keep government control away from Southern Democrats. They even managed to divide the Dakota Territory into
two states, worth twice the political power.