Well if you’re a zillionaire there’s another option. Let’s say hypothetically Amazon had chosen to put its HQ2 in Oklahoma City or thereabouts. Assuming it’s on par with HQ1, you’d get about 40,000 people at Amazon itself, with 1,100 people moving to the area per week (the current rate in Seattle) to make money supporting that tech boom.

There are 136,911 more registered Republicans than Democrats in Oklahoma*. I realize that’s throwing out independents and libertarians, and assuming no RINOs or DINOs, but we have to start somewhere. You also can’t know the makeup of these tech workers, but I think it’s safe to assume they skew way more liberal than Oklahoma on average. So at least theoretically, you could have Democrats outnumbering Republicans within two years. That’s what happens when your electoral dominance hinges on support in less-populated states. Get enough California retirees flowing into Missoula, and Montana starts looking pretty purple (this is actually happening too, but it’s slower than the HQ2 scenario).

* Voter registration numbers are always closer than you’d think in “deep red” or “deep blue” states, because once the margins are beyond a certain value, the minority party’s voters don’t bother to show up, and the size of the margin is exaggerated in vote totals.

Third parties have little hope if we must insist they can’t win

Third parties have no hope whether or not we observe that they can’t win, until we change the political system to permit them to win. And voting for them really doesn’t qualify as changing the political system, it’s just easier.