No, it’s a two party vote. You vote for one side or the other if you’re going to vote. Third party vote is barely a serious position as a protest vote. Plenty of people were sick of the Democrats and voted for Trump.

I didn’t vote but there were lots of reasons to vote for Trump that was not MAGA including inflation, Israel issue, Biden administration hiding his illness, Kamala not being a legitimate candidate, etc.

You vote for a platform. MAGA was the platform. One might not like that they voted for a platform, but they voted for that one.

I will never get mad at someone for voting 3rd party. Plenty of folks go, "Neither of the two primary platforms are valid for me, this third one is". If the Dems (or Republicans) want to capture those votes, they should figure out what the elements of those third party platforms are. No party should feel obligated to receive a vote just because they are not "the other guy".

> No party should feel obligated to receive a vote just because they are not "the other guy".

You can repeat that all you want but that's not how the reality of current politics work. Democrats have actively campaigned on being "not the other guy" for a very long time.

I've been voting for almost 40 years. Democrats have been running on that platform basically the whole time. Quite frankly, it is how things work. Dems are absolutely leaving votes on the table by running bad platforms. Mamdani is running a very different platform and is absolutely crushing it out there.

And I think the fact that the party is losing more and more often is a clear indication the lack of votes for it are having an impact, and are resulting in new candidates coming forward to capture them.

Obama ran on a platform which he didn't ultimately move forward on once elected, but at least he had a vision that moved people.

there weren't really any good reasons to vote for trump, but there are plenty of crazy ones folks are falling back on lol