People here don't want a new part to split conservative voters and guarantee victory to the Dems, that's understandable. But people here are also saying the Dems and Reps are the same party, so why do we care which one wins?

We already know what the Patriot Party could achieve - it would be very similar to UKIP and later the Brexit Party in the UK.

UKIP never won a single seat in Parliament, despite winning 15% of the vote, because the UK has a FPTP system somewhat similar to the US. What UKIP did achieve is scaring the establishment party (the Conservatives) into doing something they didn't necessarily want to do: Promising a referendum on EU membership

Later in the EU elections, the Brexit Party ran away with almost every single UK seat, putting more pressure on the establishment to keep their promises

Both parties also tended to do better in local elections

I see the Patriot Party doing the same thing. They would probably win a fair amount of local council, legislature and House races. They could probably also win a few Congress House seats, maybe even a Senate seat at some point, but in the Presidential elections they would serve as a vote splitter

If the Republican party wanted to keep existing as anything more than a token force, they would have to work with the Patriot Party to pass what they wanted (voter reform at local and Federal levels) and perhaps form an alliance in the House and Senate

The Patriot Party could easily start with 25% of votes, more than UKIP ever got. They would be primed to be king makers, and force the Republican Party to reform through external pressure