Campaigns & Elections
Mamdani adviser heads to Maine to sort out Senate mess
Morris Katz is trying to help scandal-starred U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner wind down his campaign and find an appropriate replacement.
Mamdani adviser Morris Katz, second from left, with Fight Agency colleagues after watching Zohran Mamdani cast a ballot in the Democratic primary election on June 20, 2026. Jeff Coltin/City & State NY
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called on Graham Platner, Maine’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, to end his campaign, a day after Platner was accused of sexual assault by a former partner.
“I believe that it’s time for him to drop out of the race. … I think the focus of today should be to respond to the gravity of what so many of us have read (about Platner), and I think the only appropriate response is for the campaign to come to an end,” he told reporters at an unrelated press conference on Tuesday.
At the same time, the mayor’s top political adviser, Morris Katz, was flying to Maine to try to sort things out with Platner. The 27-year-old New Yorker has advised Platner since he launched his left-populist, anti-establishment campaign for U.S. Senate last year. The New York Post reported that Katz has been encouraging Platner to stay in the race, but a person close to the campaign told City & State that’s not true.
The source said Katz’s progressive political consulting firm Fight Agency is currently working with Platner to wind down the campaign – Platner hasn’t formally suspended his campaign yet, but almost all campaign operations are currently on ice – and figure out who should replace him on the ballot. He needs to drop out by July 13 to ensure Maine Democrats can nominate someone else to run for Senate against Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
Fight isn’t the only out of state consulting firm working with Platner. Brooklyn-based Slingshot Strategies, which counts Rep. Grace Meng and Assembly Member Alex Bores’ congressional campaigns as its recent clients, has also been advising Platner.
On Monday, Politico reported that one of Platner’s former partners had accused him on the record of sexual assaulting her while drunk.
Mamdani’s comments on Platner were a relatively rare step into another state’s politics. Despite becoming a national political celebrity among a segment of the Democratic Party, he has refrained from weighing in on elections outside the city he leads.
“When it comes to my own endorsements, I've made eight endorsements at the state and federal level,” he said on Tuesday. “They've all been right here in New York City. I'm incredibly excited at the fact that they won their races, and that's where my focus is for now."