The reason it doesn’t matter is that everyone who chooses to vote third party does so fully knowing who the two front runners are, as well as the likely margin of their state. Most third-party voters are in
extremely uncompetitive states, making it quite safe to make a statement vote, even though it potentially dampens your “lesser of two evils” candidate’s apparent mandate.
For instance, I wrote an invalid write-in candidate since both major parties ran clowns in 2024, but Harris carried my state by a mile.
