politics

Third Parties do not exist in a vacuum. I think way too many people have had their heads stuck in 2000 to realize this, they have trends that shift. Voting Third Party has helped democrats since at least 2008, and 2004 was pretty neutral. You could also argue it probably helped them in the 90s as Ross Perot was probably hurting Bush more so really 2000 was the odd one.

A lot of young voters don't always realize these factors are not set in stone. The Electoral College helped Democrats more in 2004-2012, it just didn't stick out because Obama was so absurdly popular it smothered it and Bush managed to hold onto Ohio by the skin of his teeth in 2004 preventing Kerry from winning via EC. Meanwhile 2000 went to the EC by basically a fluke(popular vote margin was the tightest ever of an election where it and the EC didn't agree, winning margin was tightest ever period, butterfly ballot issue, Bush probably would have won New Mexico if they recounted there) and 2016 did come down to that so people focus on that and ignore 2004-2012.

Or Swing States. The USA doesn't always have them at all, sometimes basically every state is up for grabs(See the 70s and 80s or the 30s and 40s), it depends on how divided by party line the country is at the time, it's cyclical. And when there are Swing States they aren't locked in, neither are solid states. California was a safe red state from the late 60s until the late 80s, then for about a decade it was considered a Swing State, and after 2000 it was considered a solid blue state. Virginia was a safe red state until 2004, then it was a swing state during Obama's years and 2016 before being considered a solid blue state. Iowa and Ohio and New Hampshire were THE swing states for decades (hence their good spots in the Primaries) until they weren't, two went safe red and one went safe blue. Sure, 2024 and 2020 are mostly the same(Florida is the only shift, it was considered a swing state in 2020 and safe red now), but 2016 had a ton of states up for grabs, and 2012 only had like 4 or 5(Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and MAYBE Iowa?).

The Third Party votes have been hurting Republicans for years, just none of the elections were tight enough for it to have 2000 style effects. If America had ranked choice or run-off style ballots or simply no third parties allowed Trump would have won even harder in 2016, no third party means he carries the popular vote and gets an extra half a dozen states. Gary Johnson had 5 and a half percent of the vote and another 2 percent went to Evan McMullin, both right wingers, Plus another percent for the smaller right swing parties. Yeah Hillary would get the green vote, but say goodbye to New Hampshire, goodbye to New Mexico, goodbye to Minnesota. Even in 2020, in a world with no third parties Trump gets Georgia safely, probably gets Arizona, and Wisconsin is getting dangerously tight. He probably still loses, Wisconsin is highly unlikely to come up favorably, but still.

Now the script is flipped. Even in the states where Cornel and Claudia were gatekept, Green's have their leading lady back and the Libertarians are infighting badly, Constitution Party is still weakened. Georgia was on the verge of a Hat Trick(No Constitution Party, but the Greens + PSL + Cornel) prior to them saying Cornel and Claudia's votes wouldn't count, Virginia HAS a hat trick(and while it's considered a safe blue that that's going to eat into the margins massively, don't expect a 10 point win), and Wisconsin sorta has one, all the left parties are there, but so is the Constitution Party and RFK Jr. There's going to be a few more potential Democrats leaking out, and a few people who would normally vote Libertarian or Constitution voting Trump. Those margins matter. Honestly RFK Jr's role here was quite clever, he dropped off too late for the 4 or 5 parties signed up with him to do anything, and he further helped gimp the Libertarians, double filtering the moderates to Trump and helping the Leftist Faction get the pres pick.