So, where did the dems go wrong?

...plus many Democrats staying home, for starters.

If she had been decent to Bernie Sanders' people....

How do you "play" the electoral vote "properly"?

From my brief research, the electoral vote "weights" rural votes a little heavier than city votes.

It weighs lower populated states higher than larger populated states, not rurality.

The last three presidential elections indicate that the votes of poorly educated white males (PEWMs) weighed more than the votes of other demographics

Townhall’s Matt Vespa called it “the revenge of the white working class,” Politico the “Revenge of the rural voter.” Clinton, according to CNN contributor and historian Stephanie Coontz, “was simply unable to present herself as a forceful defender of everyone who has been left behind by the march of globalization, professionalization and the emergence of a new just-in-time, winner-take-all economy.” And Cracked’s David Wong, in an article with nearly ten million views, explains why rural voters came out so strongly for Trump: “To those ignored, suffering people, Donald Trump is a brick chucked through the window of the elites. ‘Are you assholes listening now?’”

It’s true that the white working class was instrumental in delivering Trump the White House. In the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Clinton underperformed Barack Obama among white working class voters, and this cost her the electoral college. Had about 100,000 of these voters across the three states voted for her instead of Trump, she would be president–elect now, instead of sitting on a possible two-million vote Pyrrhic popular vote victory.

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It weighs lower populated states higher than larger populated states, not rurality.

Rural areas are less populated.

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The last three presidential elections indicate that the votes of poorly educated white males (PEWMs) weighed more than the votes of other demographics

That doesn't tie in with this information at all. In fact, rural educated caucasian voters were the turning point, according to statistics here.

States with small populations can have large cities which can hardly be regarded as rural.

That's a minority opinion that contradicts itself in your quote.

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States with small populations can have large cities which can hardly be regarded as rural.

Which explains the need for the EC vote, does it not? How else would the rural voters feel empowered, if the city vote cancelled out the rural vote?

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That's a minority opinion that contradicts itself in your quote.

How does it contradict itself? You'd need to expand on that a little for us.