What you observe is correct, except for two considerations:
First, as regards my voting strategy, note the operative words “unless a race is potentially competitive”. Looking back over the 20ish years I’ve lived in my current location, I can count on a single hand, without using all my fingers, just how many times there have been potentially competitive races on the ballot in the general election.
In all but one of those instances, I have held my nose and voted for the lesser evil (and even then, because in this state, candidates can be nominated by multiple parties, I was able to technically vote third party.)
In that one instance BOTH of the candidates I deemed to be a “greater evil”, Apparently, I wasn’t alone thinking that, because the third parties either cross-nominated or declined to run anyone, to avoid being spoilers. The race wasn’t going to impact control of the legislative body they were campaigning for a seat in, so that couldn’t guide my vote either.
I was SO disgusted with both of the candidates in that race that my conscience wouldn’t let me simply return a blank ballot on that item. Instead, I filled out the necessary form with the Secretary of State so I could write in my own name without spoiling my ballot.
A small independent paper sought out the official write-in candidates, interviewed those it could find…and much to my surprise, I came in third, with a few thousand votes.
That anecdote aside… remember that declining to vote for the lesser evil in non-competitive races doesn’t preclude also supporting reforms to our defective political architecture of single-representative geography-based districts where candidates are chosen with a first past the post mechanic. I can, and do, support such efforts when opportunity presents.
However, I am living in a state that is dominated by one party (and thus is disincented from changing the political architecture), that has no viable citizen-led initiative process (the only realistic path for referendums to end up on statewide ballot is through the legislature), where the other party’s state leadership is currently remarkably impotent / incompetent / mostly focused in agitating for the federal party, and where citizens dissatisfied with the current political realities in state are the ones least likely to be interested in alternative election infrastructure.
To have any chance of getting a kernel of support for changing the status quo, there needs to be more people who are aware that there are alternatives to the status quo. Therefore, I deem that when I am filling out my ballot, when presented with the usual array of non-competitive races, my vote is best spent trying to do something, anything, to highlight that there are alternatives to the status quo, or at least to help alternatives overcome the state’s ballot access requirements that serve to protect the status quo.
If enough people did that, there would be a slightly greater chance that something would change, either by finding critical mass to improve the political architecture in the state, or by the potential for races to suddenly start seeming competitive causing the major parties to run better candidates.
(I should also point out that all of the above was directed towards the general election. In a one-party-rule state, the real election is at the primary. When primaries are held for state offices, I do temporarily affiliate with the party so I can cast a vote in the primary…although even there, competitive races are annoyingly uncommon.)