The 'send a message' idea has been used in the past, but is there any instance where one of the two major parties did anything to respond following an election with a significant 3rd party vote? Have these 'messages' every done anything at all? I can't think of a single example.
Did the GOP adopt Perot's message after 92 and 96? Did the Dems adopt Nader's after 2000? Seems to me that both parties got back into power without appeasing those voters in any way. In 1968 Southern Dems wanted to send a message to the party with Wallace but two elections later the Dems were back in power and there was no adopting of the Wallace view, if anything it was adopted by the GOP. Maybe the biggest 'message' candidate was Teddy Roosevelt who split from the GOP and got a quarter of the vote in 1912, but his progressive agenda was not adopted by the party and they were back in power by 1920 in the biggest (PV) landslide ever.
If your goal is strategic voting, maybe this
passage will be useful.
