The real solution would be to change the voting system so that you have more options rather than just hoping that one day maybe, eventually, by some miracle voting third party works. That way as the political parties naturally distance themselves from their voterbase they phase themselves out through a ranked voting system or they shape themselves up because actual alternatives exist and being everybody's third choice doesn't get you into office.

The Electoral College was founded with the express purpose of ensuring no third party ever wins. It was literally agreed upon by the old-school conservative and liberal parties as a better-the-devil-you-know sort of mutual agreement to make sure it was always one of those two in power.

Unless we abolish or heavily modify the Electoral College popular votes will never, ever matter. Even in swing states it's still at the whim of what the electorates decide to do with their EC votes, rather than one citizen's vote equaling one vote for a candidate.