that three-time Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan would make a fourth attempt to earn the party's nomination, and would likely not have difficulty in earning it. However, Bryan announced several months before the convention that he was not interested in another run for the White House. Though still seen by many as the Democrats' ideological leader, power shifts within the party in the wake of their success at the 1910 mid-term elections meant that Bryan could no longer be guaranteed the two-thirds majority needed to earn the nomination. Additionally, Bryan privately conceded that his three presidential runs having all ended in decisive losses, firstly to William McKinley, and then to Taft, would seriously handicap his credibility as a candidate (even if the 1904 election, the only one of the previous four in which Bryan was not the Democratic candidate, had resulted in an even more lop-sided defeat for the party). However, Bryan still had enough followers in the party that he was in a strong position to be the kingmaker at the convention. The Democratic Convention was held in Baltimore from June 25 to July 2. Initially, the front-runner was Speaker of the House Champ Clark of Missouri. Though Clark received the most votes on early ballots, he was unable to get the two-thirds majority required to win. Clark's chances were hurt when Tammany Hall, the powerful New York City Democratic political machine, threw its support behind him. The Tammany endorsement caused Bryan, three-time Democratic presidential candidate and leader of the party's progressives, to turn against Clark, whom he decried as the candidate of Wall Street, and shift his support to reformist Governor of New Jersey Woodrow Wilson. Wilson had consistently finished second in balloting, and nearly gave up hope and almost freed his delegates to vote for another candidate. Instead, Bryan's defection from Clark to Wilson led many other delegates to do the same. Wilson gradually gained strength while Clark's support dwindled, and Wilson finally received the nomination on the 46th ballot. Thomas R. Marshall, the Governor of Indiana who had swung Indiana's votes to Wilson, was named Wilson's running mate. Progressive Party nomination Taft had won the Republican nomination while 344 of Roosevelt's delegates abstained from the vote. Later that day supporters of Roosevelt met in the Chicago Orchestra Hall and nominated him as an independent candidate for president which Roosevelt accepted although he requested a formal