But that doesn't mean you have to vote for a potential winner. If your politics aren't represented by either of them, why vote for either of them? Not voting for third-parties based on this logic means that binary between potential winners will remain forever.
No,
the Electoral College system and the near impossibility of amending the US Consitution means that binary between potential winners will remain forever.
People have a misapprehension that voting for third parties will somehow magically change the US electoral system into one that allows for more than a binary choice, but it can't possibly do that.
In the event that no candidate receives a majority of Electoral Votes the House of Representatives gets to choose the President and Vice President. They can choose between the top three Presidential candidates in terms of EV, but only the top
two Vice Presidential candidates. If the Presidential selection is deadlocked, the VP selection becomes President. If the VP selection is deadlocked too, the Speaker of the House becomes President.
The system is fixed, top-to-bottom and side-to-side, to present a binary choice.
At the end of the day, regardless of which two parties they are, there will always only be a maximum of two parties with a realistic chance of gaining the Presidency.
One of those will always be the party that currently controls the House, and in the event of a particularly strong third of fourth party challenge, that would be the
only one that had a chance.
