not voting tactically
In most of the US, who you vote for literally doesn't matter, because your state will go to the candidate from whatever party has won your state for the last couple decades. Unless you live in the 8 or so states that could actually, realistically flip in a given election cycle, there's literally no point in voting for the lesser of two evils.
Going into any given election, I can say with high certainty that my state will go to the dominant party with a 15% split with very high confidence, and that all votes outside of the top two will be under 5%. The only way for this to not happen is for the minority party to run a very strong candidate, the majority party to run a very unpopular candidate, and for a large third party to steal a ton of votes from the majority party.. And even then, you'll probably trim the gap to 5% or so and the majority party candidate will still win by inertia.
If you understand that, you can be free to actually vote your conscience and pick one of the third party candidates. If third party candidates collectively get enough votes to actually spoil an election in your area, maybe you have a chance to get voting reform discussed on the media, and if the majority candidate doesn't get 51% because of it, maybe it features in the debates.
So until the gap between the top two candidates narrows to where all third party voters collectively voting for the second candidate could actually flip the state, I'll keep voting for a third party candidate.