I used to live in a one party state--Democrat. I got active in the Republican Party and eventually represented the Republican party in a 20 county district larger than many states.
In a number of those counties a Republican primary had never been held nor had there ever been a Republican County Chairman or organization nor had there been anything keeping the Democrats from reporting what ever election results they felt like in Presidential, Governor, Senate, and Congressional races.
My goal was to get one person in each county to hold a Republican Primary in their home just so the people in that county would know that there really was a Republican party and to give them the opportunity to vote in such primaries as Reagan v Ford, Reagan v Bush, Bush v Kemp etc...
My life was threatened a couple times by local Democrat thugs who didn't want a Republican presence in their county. People I recruited to be county chairmen didn't usually last long. Their businesses suffered, they were threatened with being fired from their jobs, their children harassed at school, ostracized at church, etc...
So I know what it's like to fight an uphill battle
That said, third parties have no hope to be anything except spoilers in very tight races. Actually join the Republican Party and work from the inside to make changes.
After more than thirty years as a registered Republican, and having worked in the campaigns of Nixon, Ford, Reagan (Governor and President) and countless others, I've seen the Republican Party become the Democratic Party of the late sixties. They spend the country into debt. They are overly enthusiastic to compromise anything for a vote. Their promises have no substance to support them. Increasingly, voters are coming to realize the Republican Party is the other side of the same coin the Democratic Party is on. I watched the southern states switch from Democrat to Republican in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. They may have switched party affiliation, but they didn't change their government spending habits.
With both major parties suffering a disapproval rating of 60% among registered voters, there is an unorganized populist uprising take root. Behind it all are many issues, but one rings a resounding toll among Democrats and Republicans alike. Nearly 85% of registered voters are very displeased with the current policies surrounding illegal immigration. There's a groundswell rising up, and neither major political party can dodge it much longer.