What Happened to the Populist Vote? A California Case Study

Abstract

During the turbulent four years that opened the 1890s, nearly one-and-a-half million angry voters deserted the Democratic and Republican parties to join one of the most successful third-party movements in American history. Spawned by hard times, the People's party, better known as the Populists, quickly won a large following composed primarily of economically distressed and rebellious farmers in the South and West. In 1892, Populist presidential candidate James B. Weaver polled over a million popular votes and carried five western states with a total of twenty-two electoral votes, a remarkable showing. During the course of the 1890s, Populists elected governors in eight western states, sent six of their candidates to the United States Senate, and elected at least forty more to the House of Representatives.1 These Populist successes forced a worried Democratic party to respond by nominating agrarian crusader William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska for the presidency in 1896. Although the Great Commoner went on to a resounding defeat at the hands of Republican William McKinley, the selection of Bryan on a watered-down Populist platform calling for free silver proved quite successful as a strategy for co-opting the Populist move-