It's not in any way a "pointless vanity ticket". It's a specific strategic choice the party explains here: https://www.liberationschool.org/why-we-are-running-in-the-2024-presidential-race/

Working and poor people need their own class-conscious organizations where their needs are subordinate to no one. Elections allow working class parties to directly contrast their program to the capitalist parties in their entirety, demonstrating that socialism is superior to capitalism at proposing solutions that meet the scale of the problems facing the majority of people.

The general sense that a socialist program is “implausible” in the present system gives elections the further ability to expose the thing standing between the substandard status quo and a fulfilling future: the capitalist state, or, said differently, the current political system.

Elections, along with strikes, rebellions, and protests, are a rallying point, where the broad mass of those disillusioned with capitalism can gather and turn their scattered protest into a large-scale positive force for change. Furthermore, they are a unique arena to educate and organize greater numbers to work towards building a new system. Winning power is a long, complex process, but it will never happen unless we openly contend for it and explain what an alternative world could look like.

It's fundamentally about utilizing the massive attention driven towards the presidential circus to promote a socialist platform in contrast to the bourgeois parties, extends the reach of the organization, and builds the revolutionary party.

Our campaign is explicitly pitched for power. What does this mean? First, it means that focusing a campaign on proving the capitalist ideology of the major parties (and some minor ones) is totally bankrupt. Instead, we must go further to show how socialism is the best solution for the problems of the working class. It becomes clear that real power for workers can’t be achieved within the current system, something made apparent by the very “implausibility” of our sound solutions. Finally, in this campaign, we are raising the key issue of how to make deep social change: the need for a Party.

Running a presidential campaign gives access to places and people who might otherwise be unreachable. It is not about winning the presidency or promoting our candidates. It's about leveraging every opportunity to demonstrate the necessity of a Marxist-Leninist communist party and making that organization bigger and more formidable.