This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. As a rule, third party candidates don’t win in the United States. Then again, a third-party bid has never had the backing of the world’s richest man. Which is why multi-billionaire Elon Musk’s announcement this weekend that he is launching his own political party has pretty much every political pro in Washington gaming out how a ticket-splitting effort rooted in