In 1892 James Weaver began to spread populists ideas throughout the nation. It was not until the biggest economic crisis hit, known as the Panic of 1893, that people began to realize that they did not approve of their current government system. People began to want a change in their system and it was not until Jacob S. Coxey came into the picture, that a revolution began. Coxey marched 200 populists supporters to the capital in demand for reforms. This led many of the people of America to support populist ideas and want a populist leader to win the election of 1896.
William Jennings Bryan later came involved in the election of 1896 as a nominee of the Democratic party. He was one of Lincoln's attorneys and was known as the "Great Commoner" because of his amazing speaking skills. He was nominated to be a candidate by both democrats and populists after his "free coinage of silver speech" in 1896.
His rival, William Mckinley of the Republican party, believed that Bryan's idea of "free coinage of silver" would only bring America to a fall. Mckinley was very wealthy and powerful and he used it to start a campaign from home which allowed him to be seen through posters instead of in person and made people see him as the best candidate for presidency. He launched many speeches that persuaded people to fear Bryan's idea as well. As a result of Mckinley making people fear Bryan's idea, Mckinley had taken the win for presidency in 1869 (271-216 electoral votes).
Source: http://www.ushistory.org/us/41e.asp
This is a good summary of the election of 1896. Maybe you could have added that the populists joined the democrats because the democrats had some similar ideas like free silver and if they did not join forces they would have split the vote and made a certain Republican victory. But, the Republicans won anyways and the populist disappeared.
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