Most of us consider a third-party vote wasted and say so when we encounter someone who is going to do it. This could be the election that is decided by a single vote. It's close. It's important, the most important election of your lifetime.* Every year there are, in fact, local elections that are tied or only a single vote. NH had a Senatorial race in the 70s where they decided to run the election again because the count and recount were very close, and also different.
But even the extremest of close elections, such as Florida in 2000, ends up with votes to spare for the winner. In retrospect then, a third-party vote might have had more effect in terms of "sending a message" that People Like You wanted to be heard. Still rather small, but maybe even less wasted than a Republican/Democrat vote. We don't see this because we have had mostly duolithic elections for so many years that any other outcome seems intuitively unreal.
Europeans see more dramatic rising and falling of parties over their lifetimes.
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