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I am not trolling..
Yes I've done the math..
There have been 59 elections for president in the history of the USA... in that time 8 of those have been elections where a third party from a previous year was one of the two top parties in the current election.
In all those cases the third parties the year before a switch had about the same support as they do now in terms of percentage, and the next year shot up to 50%+
that works out to a 13.5% chance in any one election of a third party with ~2% support or less from a previous year will win that year.
If we look at recent history points of note the last time one came close was Ross perot in 1992 at nearly 20% of the vote, and of course in the early part of 19th centraully where was also a third party coming into the top two.
While all of that does suggest a third party is certainly the long-shot... to say impossible is just not factual... Depending on how you look at iut there is a 13.5% chance at best, at worst maybe a 5% chance of them winning.
Voting for the non-evil choice with a 5% chance I will take any day than voting for teh super-evil choice who is just a tiny bit less evil than the other super-evil choice just because he had a 40% change of winning.
Thats not a strategically wise tradeoff for me.
