Check out FairVote’s Perot simulator (http://www.fairvote.org/?page=2071), which shows how Perot could have
swung the election with only a few tweaks to what occurred in 1992. The
simulator shows that Perot or Bloomberg could carry the presidency with
only 34% of the vote. Perot could have won the election with a slight
change in strategy without winning the popular vote!

Stranger still, a third party candidate could also throw the election to
the House to decide.

In other words, the electoral college is not really a primary obstacle
to a third party candidate’s electoral success.