Mugwumps

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The Mugwumps were Republican political activists in the United States who were intensely opposed to political corruption. They famously switched parties from the Republican Party by supporting the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the 1884 United States presidential election, due to their rejection of the long history of corruption associated with the Republican candidate James G. Blaine. Despite never formally organizing, the Mugwumps claimed that their influence was the reason that Grover Cleveland won a close election in New York, which in turn gave him enough electoral college votes to win the presidency. The jocular word "mugwump," noted as early as 1832 and applied to these activists derisively, is from Algonquian mugquomp, "important person, kingpin" (from mugumquomp, "war leader"), implying that Mugwumps were sanctimonious or "holier-than-thou" in refusing to be beholden to partisanship. After the election, "mugwump" survived for more than a decade as an epithet for a party...

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