Sure Gerrymandering and restrictive voting laws (largely meant to suppress the minority vote) play their part, but the biggest problem IMO is a certain attitude of liberal/progressive voters themselves. (And I say this as a liberal voter.) It's this tendency among some progressives to seek a flawless, "pure" candidate and to punish people who fail to live up to that goal, and to repeatedly make the perfect the enemy of the good. We punish our people so much more than the other side punishes theirs. Eliot Spitzer screwed a hooker, and now he couldn't get elected dog catcher. Scott DesJarlais, a family values/pro-life/Christian Republican from Tennessee is revealed to have had multiple affairs and to have pressured at least two women to have abortions...and he gets re-elected TWICE. 2016 was another great example. There were progressive voters who said that they couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton because she only wanted to push for free community college and not free four-year college, or that she would only push for a $12 minimum wage and not a $15 minimum wage, or because she hesitated before coming out in favor of marriage equality, etc. Meanwhile there were conservatives out there who were like, "I fundamentally disagree with everything Donald Trump stands for, and I am horrified that he is my party's nominee...having said that, I'm still gonna vote for him." I think there is a very real chance that Donald Trump could win again in 2020 in spite of the fact that over 60% of voters disapprove of him. Why? Because every time I see a story about some potential Dem candidate(s) for 2020 I inevitably see comments from a bunch of progressive voters saying things like, "If they get the nomination, I'm totally gonna vote for a third party candidate."
The problem is not represented in this tired old "the ideal is the enemy of the good" meme, endlessly trotted out to marginalize the rational and support the insane, corrupt and genuinely evil. Hillary? She's a monster, plain and simple. Those who can't see this simple reality are THE problem. The problem is NOT that some imaginary/imperfect common folk are obsessed with the ideal or the pure. The problem is monsters like the Clintons, and shoving them down the throats of the People. If the people have GENUINELY decent - if not perfect - choices, the People will respond positively. Supporting monsters like Clinton, and blaming decent people for not supporting these monsters? Monstrous.
