they usually don’t win

Sorry, had to make that a bit more accurate. For all those wondering how futile voting for anything other than the two major parties is, these are the ones that did the best https://www.thoughtco.com/most-successful-independent-presidential-candidates-3367561

It basically comes down to: voting independent = voting republican. I’m not saying that’s always the case, but it seems to be the trend that voting outside the two major parties is stealing votes from the democrats