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Mugwump

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Mugwump
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Member of the reform faction of the early Republican Party. In 1884 the Mugwumps refused to support the Republican presidential candidate, James Blaine, whom they considered politically corrupt, and campaigned instead for Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland, whom they saw as a reformer. The term, derived from an Indian word for "war leader," had been used in political slang to mean "kingpin" and was applied to the breakaway group by a New York newspaper. In U.S. political slang mugwump came to mean any independent voter; the term was later adopted in England.

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