Politics isn’t religion. Believing isn’t enough, not by a long ways. It’s the ultimate popularity contest. And a principled loser is still a loser and only a footnote in history.
my point was that you may have missed is that Lincoln was elected in a three way race...
and the GOP was born so I would not discount third parties absolutely
though with our demographics today in which the Left owns all but the white Christian plurality (shrinking as we speak as a plurality) we can’t have that luxury