I mentioned that I voted, and they naturally asked me who I voted for. I said, "De la Cruz. Third party."
"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that?", one of them said, and the whole group looked at me a bit puzzled — so I reiterated, "De la Cruz, a third-party candidate."
"...Wait, there's a *THIRD* party?"
Your writing here is truly evocative of the teachers of young Athenian statesmen in the fifth century BC.