Maine Senate candidate’s campaign includes DSA recruiters and Mamdani adviser
Graham Platner’s campaign staff includes a couple who recruited him after knocking on his door and a strategist who worked on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s election. Platner leads incumbent Sen. Susan Collins by seven points in an average of recent polls.
Washington ExaminerMaine Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner’s campaign team includes a Democratic Socialists of America couple who recruited him and a strategist who helped elect New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan met Platner last summer after they had spent several months in Maine searching for a candidate to challenge incumbent Sen.
Susan Collins. Platner told The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart that the pair contacted him after seeing a video he made opposing a Norwegian salmon farm and learning he had donated to Sen. Bernie Sanders. D. student, previously worked on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign.
They had earlier recruited Nebraska independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn and Iowa Democratic Senate candidate Nathan Sage.
Katz, 27, a Democratic strategist at Fight Agency, joined the campaign after Moraff contacted him. Katz worked on Sen. John Fetterman’s campaign and on Mamdani’s successful bid for New York City mayor last year. Katz has been credited with helping shape the media and advertising plan used in Mamdani’s election.
He has also faced criticism for a message sent through a third party to a former Platner staffer warning against cooperation with news outlets reporting on the candidate’s explicit text messages.
Platner, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer, pushed Gov.
Janet Mills out of the Democratic primary in April. An average of polls from March through late May compiled by RealClearPolitics shows him leading incumbent Sen. Susan Collins by seven percentage points.
