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When we were interviewing one of the guests for this episode, Nick, you mentioned this archival recording.

Mr. Chairman and General Moon of the Convention.

Yeah, that's something I stumbled on a while ago accidentally, and I was confused because

there's this guy, William Jennings Bryan, who was the 1896 Democratic nominee.

But he was also the populist nominee.

So he was part of a presidential race that had two candidates, but three parties,

which I did not realize was possible.

But this is not a contest between persons.

Yeah, I looked into it. Republican, Democrat, and populist.

You know, we were on the gold standard, and they wanted silver to be an option with a sort of

easier exchange rate for them, thus the famous speech, you know, cross-of-gold speech.

This is Jeffrey Skelly, an elections analyst at 538.

We have gotten a lot of questions over the years about third parties in American politics.

I think the libertarian party, the green party, they're a form party.

Right, these are parties we've heard of, but they don't actually make a ton of headway in elections.

The third party success, we've seen historically at various points, has often

come about because of a party schism, where there is a deep divide within one of the major parties.

Back when William Jennings Bryan ran for president, the deep divide was gold.

Bryan's cross of gold speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention killed.

Supposedly, after he finished, there was a moment of odd silence.

Before the place erupted with applause and cheering, and for he's a jolly good fellows,

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