Thus all the candidates who entered the race were Tillmanites and were proponents of Free Silver.

Of the four serious candidates in the race, John L. McLaurin was the most acceptable to the Conservatives and was the only one strongly in favor of the tariffs promoted by the Republicans.

McLaurin was accused of organizing the Populist Party in South Carolina, a charge he vehemently denied.

S.G. Mayfield withdrew from the race on August 12 at Yorkville when McLaurin provided evidence that he had worked to prevent the Populist Party from organizing in South Carolina.

John T. Duncan and G. Walton Whitman were the two minor candidates in the contest, although Duncan withdrew from the race in the closing days of the campaign and Whitman was never officially recognized by the state Democratic Party.