Let's assume state borders get set like county borders, how many days ride on horseback it takes to reach the state capital. That's a reasonable rule especially for the difficulty of travel overland in all of the states until the railroad networks are fully in place about 1893.
So big states become several to many states:
Texas: Galveston, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Lubbock, Amarillo, El Paso, etc. all become state capitals.
Kansas: Kansas City and Wichita capitals
Minnesota: Duluth and another are added.
Wisconsin: Northern Wisc.'s added.
Illinois: Chicago in the North, Cairo in the South
North Dakota: Fargo, Bismarck, and Red River Valley Capitals
Montana: Glasgow, Miles City, Billings, Havre, Great Falls, Bozeman, Missoula, Helena, Kalispel, Libby, capitals
South Dakota: Sioux Falls, Pierre, and Rapid City capitals
Nebraska: Lincoln, Omaha, and 1-2 more
Oklahoma: 3-4
New Mexico: 3-4
Colorado: 4-5
Utah: 4-5
Nevada: 5-6
California: San Francisco, Sacramento, Redding, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Diego, Imperial Valley, Sierra Nevadas, and probably 1-2 more capitals
Washington: split E&W so Spokane is a new capital
Oregon: split E&W for an Eastern Oregon capital as well
Michigan: Upper Peninsula as a separate state
Louisiana: N & South split so New Orleans and Baton Rouge
probably Arkansas splits E&W
Indiana splits N & S
Alaska splits at least into 4-6 despite the tiny populations so Juneau, Anchorage, Aleutians, W. Yukon/Dawson, etc.
Getting to 80-90 states is easy when you look at regional economies, climates, transportation routes, regional centers/cities, shared priorities among the populations etc.. Most states have different separations and conflicts than just rural vs. urban or biggest city vs. state capital, indicating either considerable ignorance in the state's border setting or intentional balancing of regions that will always disagree substantially and often about priorities and resource allocation (Indian reservations were designed that way intentionally in the same period so it'd be odd if that wasn't part of the state border-drawing calculations in DC's USGS offices too.