political machine

plural political machines

1. UShistoricalgovernmentA local political organization or individual politician that controls a large number of personal votes and can therefore exert political influence, and is therefore often viewed as scandalous.

   They had no authority beyond that; for the inspection of meat to be sold in the city and state the whole force in Packingtown consisted of three henchmen of the local political machine!

   1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   You have my word for it, sir. And the reason for it is that this hideous traffic is one of the main cogs in our political machine. The pimps and the panders, the cadets and maquereaux… they vote the ticket of the organization; they contribute to the campaign funds; they serve as colonizers and repeaters at the polls.

   1912, Upton Sinclair, The Machine

   After all the discussion of the Kerner commission's report on urban problems, I've yet to hear a word concerning the consistency with which the ghetto population votes for the political machine that has abused it for so many years.

   1968 March 30, Joseph A. Shea, “Letters to the Editor: Ghetto Vote for Political Machine”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   But the data was not forthcoming. It was hidden, which ended up serving the interests of the lobby group that dumped more than $2m into Cuomo’s political machine. That machine is now being deployed to vilify Kim, Biaggi and other Democrats who dare to demand answers about their constituents who were killed by Covid.

   2021 February 18, David Sirota, “Cuomo-gate: a Nixonian scandal is engulfing New York”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2021, retrieved 14 Dec 2021