WASHINGTON — The baby-faced socialist strategist behind Graham Platner’s disastrous Maine Senate bid, Morris Katz, was mysteriously missing from the scandal-scarred campaign’s consultant payroll — despite his firm boasting about creating dozens of ads for the disgraced Democrat.
The oysterman’s principal campaign committee, Graham for Senate, forked over $10,177,696 to just a trio of entities between August 2025 and May 2026 for consulting, media buys, ads and data acquisition, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.
The firms — LC Media, Helix Campaigns and Workers Productions — accounted for more than 70% of the campaign’s operating expenditures during that time period, but no filings exist showing payments to Katz’s Democratic political consulting firm, Fight Agency.
Katz and his Fight Agency co-founder, Rebecca Katz (no relation), also weren’t listed in individual FEC filings on the Platner campaign’s payroll.
This is despite Katz — who propelled Mayor Zohran Mamdani to victory — recruiting Platner, and Fight Agency claiming it had made “over 40 ads” for the failed campaign.
“Fight Agency is a media firm. We make ads. For the Platner campaign, we made one launch video and over 40 ads,” a rep told Axios this week.
The ads were massively successful in improving Platner’s profile in the Pine Tree State, with the 41-year-old going on to win the Democratic primary by a whopping 72 percentage points last month.
Americans for Public Trust executive director Caitlin Sutherland told The Post that it is not uncommon for campaigns to attempt to obfuscate payments to consultants in FEC filings by routing them through payroll companies or the firms that employ them, rather than using their names.
It’s unknown whether any of the other firms that were directly paid by the Platner campaign contributed to salaries for Fight Agency employees before their candidate chose to bow out.
Workers Productions was paid $334,000 for video production by the campaign; Helix Campaigns took more than $4 million for digital consulting and data acquisition; and LC Media received nearly $5.8 million for media buys.
Platner dropped out of the closely-watched Senate race on Wednesday following a rape accusation from an ex-girlfriend, allegations of physical abuse against a woman he dated previously and the unearthing of unseemly comments about veterans and sex assault victims he made on Reddit forums.
After losing the support of national and state Democrats in the wake of the rape report earlier this week, Platner hunkered down with Katz and his campaign team in Maine to discuss whether to abandon his run.
Ryan Aquilina, who was also photographed there on Wednesday, is listed as the owner of Helix Campaigns, according to District of Columbia business records. He worked for the Platner campaign as a consultant.
Campaign manager Ben Chin, his deputy Eleni Neyland and field director Spencer Toth are all listed on the Platner payroll in FEC filings.
As of Thursday, Platner was still keeping Maine Democrats in suspense, having not filed his official paperwork to withdraw from his Senate bid.
Platner supporters were queried Wednesday about their preferred candidate to take up his mantle in the race against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), according to a webpage link blasted out by the campaign.
Fight Agency had helped socialist Mamdani triumph in the 2025 New York City mayoral race.
Their firm is known for its unapologetic, populist messaging and has also cut ads for Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Nebraska Senate Democratic candidate Dan Osborn.
Reps for Fight Agency and the Platner campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
