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Parties > Party 340

About the Populist Party
The People’s Party (better known as the Populist Party) was a Left-Wing party founded in 1892. The party sprung out of an alliance between those who supported a fiat currency (i.e. one not backed by gold) and midwestern farmers in the Farmer’s Alliance who supported railway regulation to give farmers better prices, as well as other farming protections. Many other anti-monopolist and pro-worker groups were involved in the party’s formation. The Populist Party had a platform of loans and pricing control for farmers, a shorter work day, direct election of senators, a graduated income tax, the restriction of immigration and public ownership of railroads and other utilities—a platform that made the party particularly popular in rural areas of the Mountain West, Midwest and South, but less popular in urban areas. Wealthy businessmen in particular opposed the party and its “radicalism.” The party ran its own presidential candidate, James Weaver, for President in 1892, and he carried five Western States. The financial panic of 1893 led to a growth of the party’s strength, and it took the legislature of North Carolina (in alliance with NC Republicans, who were strongly supported by poor white and African-American voters). In 1896, there was a split within the populist party between those who believed the party should support major-party presidential candidates or run their own. The former faction won, and the party backed Democratic Presidential Candidate William Jennings Bryan, who had populist sympathies, against business ally William McKinley. Bryan lost with 46.7 percent of the vote. After this defeat, the populists lost much of their support, with many of their members moving to the Democratic Party. The party declined and eventually dissolved in 1908.

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