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In the United States, a carpetbagger was a Northerner who traveled to the South after the American Civil War, through the late 1860s and the 1870s. They were so named after the habit of carrying belongings in a carpet bag. Since many Southern business and political leaders were ousted from their positions as a result of the war, there was much personal gain to be found by travelling south, and many of these carpetbaggers became mayors, governors, and business leaders.

In subsequent years, the term has come to be used in the United States as a derogatory term for a politician who moves to another state for political reasons, such as ease of election.

Carpetbagging was also used in the United Kingdom in the 1990s during wave of flotations of building societies (mutuals), as a derogatory term for the advocates of these conversions. Investors in these mutuals would receive shares in the new public companies, usually distributed at a flat rate, thus equally benefiting small and large investors, and providing a broad incentive for members to vote for conversion-advocating (carpetbagging) leadership candidates.

Major building societies which converted included: Northern Rock Halifax Bradford and Bingley Woolwich

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