For the same reason they don't vote for a third-party candidate in the general, even if they like that candidate much more - they want to maximize the chance of

For the same reason they don't vote for a third-party candidate in the general, even if they like that candidate much more - they want to maximize the chance of winning for the "lesser evil" and not risk the "greater evil" winning. I do like approval voting as well, for the same mentioned reasons, but I worry that after a few elections people would start voting strategically, and then it could take another few decades to change the voting system again. The more important part isn't ranked choice or approval voting anyway - both are single-winner voting systems which are far from ideal for elections involving Congress/Parliaments and local legislature. It's much preferable to have a proportional representation voting system for those.