Third parties don’t work; in this country, anyway.
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IIRC, the Repubs started out as a ‘third party’.
As Michael Medved points out the Republicans were never really a third party, the Whigs they replaced was only 23 years old when it disappeared in 1856.
” They were organized on February 28, 1854, held their first convention on July 6, and elected forty-four Representatives and fifteen Senators in November (19% of the House; 25% of the Senate)*. In the 1854 and ‘58 elections, with the help of some other parties, they denied majority control of the House to the Democrats. They unsuccessfully ran John Fremont for President in 1856. When they elected Lincoln as President in 1860, they took majority control of the House and the Senate. By the time Lincoln began his first term as President, the party was in place and in power.”