[49] Cleveland also had Halpin admitted to the Providence Asylum in an attempt to have her sober up and get her life back on track. However Halpin only stayed at the asylum for five days because she was deemed to not be insane.[49][50] After she left the asylum, Cleveland provided financial support to her in order to help her begin her own business outside of Buffalo.[49] Although lacking irrefutable evidence that Cleveland was the father,[51] the illegitimate child became a campaign issue for the Republican Party in Cleveland's first presidential campaign, where they smeared him by claiming that he was "immoral" and for allegedly acting cruelly by not raising the child himself.[51][52]

Mayor of Buffalo
In the 1870s, the municipal government in Buffalo had grown increasingly corrupt, with Democratic and Republican political machines cooperating to share the spoils of political office.[53] In 1881 the Republicans nominated a slate of particularly disreputable machine politicians; the Democrats saw the opportunity to gain the votes of disaffected Republicans by nominating a more honest candidate.