After Tillman returned from Chicago to South Carolina, he suggested he had delivered an intentionally radical speech so as to allow Bryan to look statesmanlike by comparison. This interpretation was mocked by his enemies. Tillman is not known to have otherwise discussed his feelings at the failure of his presidential bid, and the political grief was likely overwhelmed by personal sadness a week after the convention when his beloved daughter Addie died, struck by lightning on a North Carolina mountain. Tillman campaigned for Bryan, but was a favorite target of cartoonists denigrating the Democratic candidate and supporting the Republican, former Ohio governor William McKinley. Bryan had also been nominated by the Populists, who selected their own vice presidential candidate, Georgia's Thomas E. Watson. Tillman was active in efforts to get Watson to withdraw, having a 12-hour meeting with the candidate, apparently without result. Tillman traveled widely to speak on Bryan's behalf, and drew large crowds, but his speeches were of little significance. Despite undertaking an arduous campaign, Bryan lost the election. Simkins suggested that Tillman, by helping forge an image of the Democratic Party as anarchic, contributed to Bryan's defeat.