hello; There have been political "machines" in the past and they continue now. By "machine" I think it is meant a well established organization with political and financial influence. These have existed in cities, states and nationally. They use pretty much any method to sway elections, laws and the courts in their favor.
A disturbing thing currently, to me at least, is how so many of the visual media outfits have gotten "in bed" with one political party. Use to be that newspapers and media news had editorial sections that endorsed a political side. That was OK because we knew up front it was editorial stuff.
Now however the regular news is distinctly biased in how all political news is presented. A very common method is to focus on only a portion of a story that favors a viewpoint and omit most of what might be an opposite view point. I have too much time so watch most of the TV news broadcasts. After some basic facts are presented coverage of the same event is spun to suit the narrative they favor. There use to be three sources. One with a left spin, one with a right spin and one pretty much neutral. Now Aljazeera is gone in the USA, which was the more neutral news and as near as I can tell there is only one for the right and all the rest lean left. I have no idea what source of news is available outside the USA, nor what sort of spin they may have.
A question might be, who has a long established and well organized machine behind them?