The whole discourse around gerrymandering is fundamentally broken because national politics is too influential compared to local politics.
What should happen is that candidates should position themselves based on the districts that they represent. A West Virginia Democrat is a different creature than a New York Democrat, and a New York Republican is different than a West Virginia Republican. This is how it should be! The candidates should be trying to win races in their districts.
Instead we have this horrifying attempt to fix the parties in time and space and say "this is what the national party represents" and try to shape districts to align to those parties. This is the tail wagging the dog.
In a perfect world the districts should be shaped based on common interests, not based on voting record. Geography or population density are pretty good heuristics. Voting record is not because they are votes for candidates, not for parties.
I don't think national elections need to have districts smaller than a state at all. If all of a state's seats in the House that are up for election were decided in a single state-wide election with multiple winners allocated with proportional representation, it is impossible to gerrymander. Many other countries have this kind of system.
In the US there is pretty fierce opposition to the idea of giving political parties any legal status. In the US they are private companies that help candidates satisfy the legal requirements for candidacy (which are party agnostic) and politicians are voluntary members that can pool resources and engage in voluntary collective activities on behalf of their party. But the party itself has no real standing. [1]
There are a variety of systems for doing proportional representation with parties, but the preference in the US has been to vote for people, not for parties. When I vote for my local candidate, I'm not voting for the local party bigwigs to decide who will be my representative in cigar-smoke filled back rooms whilst sipping brandy and complaining about the poors.
Maybe this is a hopeless dream as more and more politics shifts to the national level, but I still like the idea of it.
[1] There are some exceptions to this procedurally; there are majority/minority systems in various legislatures. And in presidential elections the nature of electors is kind of strange about this.
It's possible to do proportional representation with a ranked choice voting system where you vote for individuals rather than parties. Or you could allow voters to rank either parties or individual candidates based on their preference; an example of this is the Australian Senate election.
What should happen is that candidates should position themselves based on the districts that they represent. A West Virginia Democrat is a different creature than a New York Democrat, and a New York Republican is different than a West Virginia Republican. This is how it should be! The candidates should be trying to win races in their districts.
Instead we have this horrifying attempt to fix the parties in time and space and say "this is what the national party represents" and try to shape districts to align to those parties. This is the tail wagging the dog.
In a perfect world the districts should be shaped based on common interests, not based on voting record. Geography or population density are pretty good heuristics. Voting record is not because they are votes for candidates, not for parties.