Roughly 300 members of the Democratic Socialists of America have signed a letter asking that D.S.A. candidates and elected officials drop Morris Katz and Fight Agency, the consultant and firm closely associated with Graham Platner’s disgraced and abandoned Senate campaign in Maine.
The letter blasts Mr. Katz, 26, and Fight Agency, who work together, for promoting Mr. Platner even as troubling information about his past emerged, arguing that their efforts undermined the broader fight for Democrats to win the Senate.
The internal D.S.A. campaign against Mr. Katz places some of its biggest stars in the position of being torn between their strategists and members of their progressive base — including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a D.S.A. member who has worked closely with Mr. Katz.
The letter comes after days of exasperated conversation among some members of the D.S.A. who feel the organization’s reputation has been tarnished by its joint association with consultants who boosted Mr. Platner and Senator John Fetterman, who took a sharp rightward turn once in office.
The letter, reported earlier by The Intercept, criticized Mr. Katz for continuing to promote Mr. Platner even as scandals emerged, like his tattoo of a Nazi symbol.
“This disastrous decision not only elevated a man with a Nazi tattoo and accusations of domestic violence and sexual assault to a position of power, but has dealt a significant blow to the effort to defeat Susan Collins,” the letter read, referring to the incumbent Senator in Maine. “This is not the first time Katz and Fight Agency have appropriated the American working class’s burgeoning desire for authentic champions.”
Mr. Katz said in an interview that he and the campaign team told Mr. Platner last Saturday that he should drop out if the rumors they had just heard of a sexual assault allegation were true, and that his immediate response to hearing about recent reporting on the allegation was that the candidate should end his campaign.
“People have every right to be skeptical of consultants,” Mr. Katz said. “The burden of proof to not be a bad consultant should be on the consultant.”
Mr. Katz said in hindsight that warning signs about Mr. Platner — like earlier reporting by The New York Times on disturbing patterns in his past relationships — should have been heeded.
“I think it is fundamentally true that Congress needs more working-class representation,” Mr. Katz said. “That takes a lot of different forms, none of which should be people accused of sexual assault or rape.”
Mr. Mamdani has seen the letter and will continue working closely with Mr. Katz, whose irreverent, economic populist messaging was a core part of the mayor’s meteoric rise. “Morris Katz remains a top political adviser to Mayor Mamdani,” a spokesman for the mayor said Friday.
Mr. Katz also worked on the successful campaign of Claire Valdez, a democratic socialist who won the Democratic primary for a House seat in the Seventh Congressional District. A spokeswoman for Ms. Valdez’s campaign declined to comment.
The letter represented both rank-and-file and leading members of the D.S.A. It was signed by members of the New York City chapter’s steering committee, its electoral co-chair and national political committee members.
The effort to organize this letter began earlier this week with D.S.A. leaders in Maine, New York City and other parts of the country.
Marianne Westfall, 37, a D.S.A. leader in Maine who signed the letter, said she had been skeptical of Mr. Platner since the revelations of his Nazi tattoo. She felt that the consultants who supported him were promoting a stale, narrow idea of what the working class in America looks and sounds like, by fixating on someone masculine with a gravely voice.
She added that responses to the letter within her own chapter were mixed, given how many progressives in Maine were still processing the speed of the dissolution of Mr. Platner’s campaign.
“I would hope that D.S.A. members and socialists in office who have worked with him understand that it was D.S.A. and the movement of working-class people that makes up D.S.A. and the broader working-class coalition that put them in office and will keep them there,” Ms. Westfall said. “It’s not the work of one consultant.”
David Axelrod, a veteran Democratic strategist who has been in periodic touch with Mr. Katz, said he believes the strategist will play a role in many election cycles to come.
“There’s a little bit of Icarus here, flying too close to the sun, but that’s the nature of this business — when you have success you also become a target,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I think Morris is motivated by something real. I don’t think he’s just looking for horses in the Derby.”
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