The Populist Party was a populist political party in the United States that existed from 1892 to 1896, although some remnants existed until 1908. James B. Weaver ran as the Populists' candidate for president in 1892 with James G. Field as his vice-presidential candidate, winning Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, and North Dakota (8.5% of the popular vote). The party won the support of northern labor unions and working class southerners, and the party advocated the predominance of farmers over cities, railroads, gold, banks, and social elites, and it criticized capitalism. In 1896, the party merged into the US Democratic Party to endorse the leftist presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, who fought against gold and the elites. After the end of the Populist Party, rural America - once the base of the populist and anti-capitalist movement - would become the main stronghold of the Republican Party.
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