Kinda... mostly because the best ones never become candidates. The parties push the candidates that serve the interests of the partys donors then try to convince the voters they actually care.

Most elections are a choice between two mediocre candidates.

With the current state of the Republican party, it's truly about getting more of them out of power. Unless you're a white Christofascist bootlicker.

I used to mainly vote third party as a protest vote for both sides to do better. Didn't matter the party, really.

I voted for Obama out of genuinely wanting him in office. I thought he was decent overall but he did disappoint me.

I voted for Biden purely to keep Trump out of office. Even so, I think Biden has largely been a better President than Obama was, though the Gaza/Israel thing is really testing that. I would love to have a more progressive choice, but any time I am disappointed in Biden, I just remind myself the alternative and I would crawl across a mile of broken glass to vote for him.

So I would anecdotally say this election is outside the norm.

40% of voting-eligible Americans simply don’t vote at all.

If you have a non proportional system where parties don't make coalitions, there's no other choice (unless you live in a region where a specific party always wins with a majority of the votes, then do what you want).

Wasn't the case with Obama, as one easy example

Well, millennials voted for Obama because he genuinely inspired hope. Then we saw how he governed and it killed our entire generation's sense of hope.

Not true at all. Some of them are actively trying to get the worst one in.